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Motorsport stars of 2017
From Lewis Hamilton winning his fourth Formula 1 World Championship to Ash Sutton shocking the MSA British Touring Car Championship establishment, there have been a number of stand-out performances in the world of motorsport this year. We've picked out some of the most notable champions and drivers – and also asked the Autocar team to nominate their stars of the season just gone.
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Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton had quite the year. There was that fourth Formula 1 World Championship, of course – a new record for a British driver. And his 11 pole positions (from 20 races) gave him a career total of 72 – a new all-time F1 record. His nine 2017 wins took him to 62 for his career, cementing his spot in second on the all-time list. Hamilton started the year as one of the best F1 drivers of his generation; by the end, he entered the conversation as one of the best in the history of the sport. And, don’t forget, he’s still only 32. If he can remain in a competitive car – and there’s no reason to suggest Mercedes-AMG is going to falter any time soon – some of Michael Schumacher’s apparently untouchable F1 records (seven titles, 91 race wins, 155 podiums) suddenly seem within reach.
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Ash Sutton
Experience counts in the MSA British Touring Car Championship – there’s a reason the likes of Gordon Shedden, Jason Plato, Matt Neal and Colin Turkington are serial race winners and title contenders. So for 23-year-old Ash Sutton to break through and win the title in only his second season to become the youngest champion since 1966 was a remarkable achievement. Sutton bounced back from a dismal opening event at Brands Hatch to extract absolutely the most from his Team BMR Subaru Levorg, winning six races and edging double champ Turkington in the season finale.
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Jonny Adam and Aston Martin Racing
With 45 minutes of this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours to go, Aston Martin Vantage GTE driver Jonny Adam was running second in class, trailing close behind the GTE Pro-leading Chevrolet Corvette. The 32-year-old from Kirkaldy pushed hard and on the penultimate lap pressured Corvette driver Jordan Taylor into an error. Taylor ran off the track and picked up a puncture, and Adam overtook him as they crossed the line to start the final lap. It was an epic finish which secured the Vantage GTE a final Le Mans victory before the car was retired to make way for the new 2018 version.
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Daniel Ricciardo
He drinks champagne out of his shoe on the podium. It's a wonderfully weird thing to do, one that laughs in the face of how seriously everyone else on the Formula 1 grid seems to take themselves. But Ricciardo is no novelty act: he’s also a bloody good driver, a serial race winner when given a competitive car and one half of the most exciting driver pairing on the F1 grid, along with Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen. Who could seriously begrudge him any of the success that comes his way?
Mark Tisshaw, editor
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Billy Monger
Had fate not intervened early this year in a British F4 race, Billy Monger might be just another wannabe racing driver. But fate did intervene, in the cruellest of ways, when, unsighted, 18-year-old Monger ploughed into the back of a slowing rival’s car. In that moment he went from budding racer to double amputee. His fortitude since has been astounding, but it is his positive attitude and determined smile that have won hearts and minds in the subsequent months. Next year he’ll return to racing in a specially adapted VW Beetle. There will be no greater triumph in the motorsport world.
Jim Holder, editorial director
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M-Sport World Rally Team
Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport World Rally Team and Frenchman Sébastien Ogier won the WRC Manufacturer'sand Driver's titles in 2017 despite lacking the full manufacturer support enjoyed by the likes of Hyundai, Toyota and Citroen. What is essentially a privateer outfit went out there and beat the big boys. Yes, I know, M-Sport is a very well-funded and extremely experienced privateer team, and, sure, Sébastien Ogier was already the second most successful driver in WRC history before he switched to M-Sport, but the point stands: M-Sport was the underdog but it got the job done anyway. Will it be enough to persuade Ford to give Wilson the full backing his team surely deserves?
Dan Prosser, contributing writer
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Martin Truex Jr
Martin Truex Jr’s run to this year’s NASCAR Cup Series championship with the tiny Furniture Row Racing team was up there with Leicester City’s 2016 Premier League title in sporting upsets and feel-good stories. Once a rising star of the sport, Truex’s career momentum had stalled by 2014 and he found himself unable to land a seat with a top team. He ended up with Furniture Row, a one-car squad based in Colorado. The combo excelled, taking three wins last season; this year they hit top stride, with Truex Jr winning eight races – he’d only won seven in 11 full seasons previously – and the title. And he did so while his long-time girlfriend battled cancer and after team owner Barney Visser suffered a heart attack a few weeks before the season finale.
James Attwood, digital editor
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Fernando Alonso
But not for his Formula 1 season. No, the ‘saddest man in motorsport’ is my choice because of his performance at the Indy 500. Calm, professional and uber cool, Alonso turned up as an Indy rookie – a laughable title for a man who went toe to toe with Michael Schumacher – and did all and more that was expected of him. Qualify near the front? Check. Lead the race? Check. Look like a seasoned Indy racer? Check. A mechanical failure might have cost him a crack at a post-race milk shower, but his bravery (for a 36-year-old to jump into a new 230mph racing car and go flat-out from the off is some feat) and very obviously still abundant natural talent shone through. Let’s hope he returns next year with a more reliable set of pedals and takes the win.
Sam Sheehan, senior staff writer
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Lawrence Tomlinson
When early this year Ginetta boss Lawrence Tomlinson revealed his plan to build an all-British LMP1 racer with the aim of winning Le Mans in 2018, he instantly became my motorsport hero. I’ve always admired the way Tomlinson and co get on with achieving things without a leg-up from anyone. My prediction is they’ll do it, beating Toyota and playing a blinder (if something of a rear-guard action) for conventional race cars. If they’d had their planned (and now half-built) car on the 2017 grid, and if it had stayed reliable, they’d have beaten the hybrid Porsches and Toyotas. Why can’t they do it for real in 2018?
Steve Cropley, editor-in-chief
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Mission Motorsport
The charity that aims to rehabilitate injured former servicemen and women through the medium of motorsport. I was invited to take part in their annual 12-hour Race of Remembrance and saw first-hand how people shattered in body and mind can be brought together into a team, once more united in common cause. One of my co-drivers was a hard-as-nails former paratrooper who had been blown up in Afghanistan. Yet such was his level of PTSD that one harmless spin in qualifying left him distraught and apparently inconsolable. Then Mission Motorsport took over. The following afternoon he drove the car over the line to complete his third flawless hour of racing. He’d only ever driven on a track three times before. The look on his face was the most moving sight I’ve seen in over 20 years of racing.
Andrew Frankel - senior contributing writer
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