Ask any driver who was on the grid back then about the 2017 Formula One car and they’ll probably start rubbing their neck. It was a violent year. After years of fans—and drivers—complaining that the cars had become too slow, too narrow, and frankly too easy to drive, the FIA finally snapped. They threw out the rulebook and decided to make F1 cars look like monsters again.
It worked.
The 2017 season marked the biggest aerodynamic shift in decades. We went from skinny, high-downforce "vacuum cleaners" to wide-body machines with massive tires that looked like they belonged on a poster in a teenager's bedroom. Lewis Hamilton loved it. Sebastian Vettel loved it. The fans? They were just happy to see lap records falling like dominos. But there’s a lot more to the story than just "wider is better."
The Day F1 Reclaimed Its Soul
For about three years prior, Formula One was in a bit of a mid-life crisis. The hybrid era started in 2014, and while the engines were engineering marvels, the cars were ugly. They had these weird "finger noses" and were significantly slower than the V10 or V8 eras.
Then came 2017.
The mandate was simple: make the cars five seconds a lap faster. To do that, the engineers widened the track from 1.8 meters to 2 meters. That sounds small on paper, right? Wrong. On a narrow street circuit like Monaco or the high-speed sweeps of Silverstone, those extra 20 centimeters changed everything. The front wing grew to 1800mm. The rear wing got lower and wider, creating this aggressive, swept-back look that made the cars look fast even when they were sitting in the garage.
Pirelli played their part too. They ditched the narrow "bicycle tires" for fat rubber. The rear tires jumped from 325mm to 405mm in width. Suddenly, the mechanical grip was through the roof. Drivers weren't just "managing" tires anymore; they were attacking corners at speeds that defied physics.
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It Wasn't All Sunshine and Rainbows
While the 2017 Formula One car looked incredible, it created a massive problem that the sport is still trying to solve today: "dirty air."
Because these cars relied so heavily on complex aerodynamics—think bargeboards that looked like steak knives and intricate front wing elements—they left a massive wake of turbulent air behind them. If you were a second behind the car in front, your front end would just wash out. You’d lose all your downforce. You’d overheat your tires. Basically, you were stuck.
Overtaking became a nightmare.
I remember watching the season opener in Australia. Sebastian Vettel won in the Ferrari SF70H (one of the most beautiful cars ever built, honestly), but the race was mostly a strategic chess match rather than a wheel-to-wheel brawl. The cars were so fast in the corners that the braking zones shrank. When you have shorter braking zones and tons of dirty air, passing someone requires a mistake or a massive power advantage.
The Physical Toll on the Drivers
Let’s talk about G-forces.
Before 2017, drivers were focusing a lot on being light. Think jockeys. But when the new regs hit, they had to hit the gym. Hard.
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The cornering speeds increased so much that drivers were pulling 5g or 6g in corners like Copse at Silverstone or Pouhon at Spa. To put that in perspective, your head and helmet weigh about 6-7kg. At 6g, your neck is trying to support over 40kg of weight while you're trying to hit a turn-in point at 180mph.
Romain Grosjean famously said that the cars were "brutal" and that he had to change his entire training regime to keep his head upright. You saw drivers coming out of the car after a race looking absolutely spent. No more "Sunday drives" while talking to the engineers about fuel saving. This was flat-out sprint racing.
The Engineering Masterpieces: W08 vs. SF70H
The 2017 season gave us one of the best technical battles in history. Mercedes vs. Ferrari.
The Mercedes W08 was a "diva." That’s what Toto Wolff called it. It had a massive wheelbase—it was long, stable, and incredibly fast on power tracks, but it hated tight, bumpy circuits. Then you had the Ferrari SF70H. It was shorter, had those innovative "high-inlet" sidepods that everyone eventually copied, and it handled like it was on rails.
- Mercedes W08: Long, silver, and complex. It dominated qualifying.
- Ferrari SF70H: Aggressive sidepods and incredible "outwash" aero. It was better on its tires.
- Red Bull RB13: Adrian Newey’s "unlucky" car. It started the season slow but became a weapon by the end.
Actually, the Red Bull was a great example of how much development happened that year. They started with a very "clean" car, thinking less drag was the way to go. They were wrong. They spent the whole year adding bits of carbon fiber to it until it looked like a jagged origami project.
Why the 2017 Formula One Car Still Matters
You might wonder why we’re still talking about cars from years ago. It's because 2017 set the template for the next five years of the sport. It proved that fans wanted fast cars, but it also taught the FIA a hard lesson about "outwash" aerodynamics.
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The 2022 ground-effect regulations were a direct response to the problems created in 2017. The 2017 cars were peak "over-body" aero. They were the fastest cars in history at the time, only to be beaten by the 2020 Mercedes (the W11), which was basically the 2017 concept perfected to an insane degree.
If you go back and watch onboard footage from 2017, the cars look nervous. They look alive. The 2017 Formula One car didn't want to stay on the track; the driver had to force it.
How to Appreciate These Machines Today
If you’re a fan of engineering or just love the history of the sport, there are a few things you should do to really "get" what made these cars special.
First, go find the onboard footage of Lewis Hamilton’s pole lap at Silverstone in 2017. Look at the entry speed into Copse. He doesn't lift. He just turns in. It’s terrifying.
Second, look at the evolution of the bargeboards. If you compare a 2016 car to a 2017 car, the area between the front wheels and the sidepods went from being empty space to being filled with dozens of tiny carbon fiber vanes. Each one of those was designed to manage the "dirty" air coming off the front tires. It’s peak "no budget" engineering.
Third, acknowledge the sound. Yes, they were still V6 hybrids, but by 2017, the manufacturers had figured out how to make them louder and more aggressive than the 2014 versions. They had a distinct, metallic rasp that felt more "F1" than the early hybrid years.
Actionable Insights for F1 Fans:
- Study the Sidepods: If you want to understand modern F1 aero, look at the Ferrari SF70H. Most of the "zero-pod" or "high-intake" designs seen in the early 2020s have their DNA in that 2017 Ferrari.
- Watch the Neck: Next time you watch a classic race from 2017, look at the driver’s helmets in the corners. You can see the physical strain that no longer exists in the same way with the more "stable" 2022+ ground-effect cars.
- Compare Lap Times: Look up the pole position time for the Spanish Grand Prix in 2016 versus 2017. The jump is nearly four seconds. That is an eternity in racing.
The 2017 season wasn't perfect—the racing was often "processional"—but as a pure expression of speed and "cool factor," the 2017 Formula One car remains a high-water mark for the sport. It was the year F1 decided to be scary again. And honestly? The sport has been better for it ever since.