Away from the titanic battle for the title, 2017 saw a multitude of other subplots embedded in the lower reaches of the grid. Following a year when the driver market slot-machine had mixed up the grid in the midfield, many drivers found themselves adapted to new teams and new procedures. Others found themselves adopting a new sporting challenge entirely, with the highly-rated Stoffel Vandoorne entering McLaren from Japanese Super Formula and Lance Stroll making his debut at Williams as reigning European F3 champion.
The bottom half of Read Motorsport‘s driver rankings are not entirely a tale of woe: some performances were hamstrung by uncompetitive machinery or intractable unreliability, and in a year where the strength and breadth of the grid’s driving quality were so impressive, some very fine drives indeed struggled to attract acclaim. However equally, with the faster 2017 cars, errors became more costly, qualifying became more critical and clean weekends became more imperative. Certainly, the fearsome 2017 regulations exposed the inexperience of some, and contributed to more than one driver falling-off the grid:
