Formula One winners week: The drivers on top of their game, so far

Welcome to the midseason break, where almost nothing happens in the Formula One world due to all the engineers and factory staff being forced outside into the European sunshine, rather than behind their 3D-models or in wind tunnels.

But being forced to take a breath and not worry about how to shave off hundredths of a second of a second helps us all reflect on what has transpired so far.

The 2016 season has had a particularly interesting first half of twists and turns, ebbs and flows, driver sackings, and mother-in-law kidnappings.

It is an embarrassment of riches, as is Formula One’s preferred mode of existence – unless you’re Sauber – so this week we dissect the winners of the F1 year to date, starting with the drivers.

Lewis Hamilton
No prizes for guessing why Hamilton’s on the list – no prizes except the world championship, that is.

Hamilton’s resurgence since sitting in a Barcelona gravel trap 43 points down on teammate Nico Rosberg has been truly meteoric. The reigning world champion has outscored Rosberg by 62 points since then, which is the sport’s most significant turnaround.

This is what earns him a place on the midyear winners list. We’re witnessing peak Hamilton – his increasing tattoo count goes hand-in-hand with his confidence, and his time spent with Bieber correlates with his levels of podium champagne consumption.

His most significant test post-Barcelona came at Azerbaijan’s European Grand Prix, where he haplessly crashed in qualifying and meandered around the track during the race in the wrong engine mode. That weekend could have been a pivot back towards Rosberg, but it remains only a blip; Hamilton’s title-winning train now seems truly unstoppable.

Sergio Perez
There are few drivers who would publicly contradict their boss, but Sergio Perez didn’t hesitate to do exactly that when Vijay Mallya told the press that Force India had contracted the Mexican into next season.

Perhaps it’s Perez’s way of livening things up after Ferrari’s unimaginative re-signing of Kimi Räikkönen snuffed out the driver market – and if it is, it’s working.

It helps that the 26-year-old former McLaren driver is in the form of his life. Perez’s years against Nico Hülkenberg have given him an opportunity to slowly rebuild his tattered reputation – he beat the Le Mans-winning German in the points last season, and he holds a 15-point intra-team advantage during the break.

His podiums in Monaco and Azerbaijan, the latter after qualifying second, underlined his place among the best talents outside the biggest teams, which in turn opened negotiations with Williams and Renault.

Interest from Renault – a cashed-up manufacturer – in particular illustrates how seriously Perez is considered in the paddock these days, and if this one-time fallen star can close that works deal, such a rare F1 second chance might make him the biggest winner of the entire season.

Carlos Sainz
Toro Rosso’s best-performing driver exists in limbo: his seat is safe because Red Bull has no more young drivers to pump through its development team rather than because his talent alone warrants a place in Formula One. Despite that, the latter is true.

Carlos Sainz may have been beaten on points last year, but the final standings don’t tell the full story of both his mechanical misfortune and what has since emerged to have been a toxic team environment sickened by the raw ambition of Max Verstappen’s camp.

This year his performances come against a backdrop of a car that is slipping helplessly back through the field due to its year-old Ferrari power unit. His brief was to maximise his points haul early, and he’s done so with aplomb, finishing out of the points only once by his own hand until the German Grand Prix, where his car was severely outclassed.

The result is an early renewal of his Toro Rosso contract despite his questionable claim to being the sort of ‘young’ driver the team exists to promote, but the bending of the rules is his reward for one of the year’s most impressive half-season performances.

Honourable Mention: Rio Haryanto
Formula One’s lowest-key driver warrants an honourable mention not for any giant-slaying drives but for forcing the F1 world to ask who he is and where he came from.

GP2 winner Haryanto, the sport’s first Indonesian driver, arrived at Manor as Pascal Wehrlein’s anonymous teammate, but he’s plied his trade sufficient to match and occasionally beat his teammate, leaving some paddock pundits with little choice but to reassess their pre-season predictions in the process.

But despite his strong performances, Manor’s stringent budget requirements leaves Haryanto’s future hinged on his ability to extract sponsorship money from Asia before the Belgian Grand Prix, meaning the promising beginning to his F1 career may yet be cut short.

Who have been your standouts from the season so far? Leave your comments below.
In Friday’s column, I’ll take a look at the most successful teams of the season to date.

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