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Lewis Hamilton has comfortably come out on top in Autosport’s Formula 1 team principals’ top 10 drivers poll for 2017, with Esteban Ocon impressing at number five.
In what has become an end-of-season tradition, Autosport asked all 10 F1 teams’ bosses to rank their top 10 drivers, based on on-track performances over the course of this year’s 20 races.
Points are awarded using F1’s scoring system (25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1) to generate an overall winner.
Votes are kept secret to ensure team bosses are willing to take part and can give their honest opinion of drivers up and down the grid.
Hamilton, who won nine races this season on his way to a fourth world title, collected an impressive 233 points from a possible maximum of 250 to retain top spot.
Though it is one point short of last year’s tally, the number of teams on the grid this term has been reduced by one, following Manor’s departure, making this year’s score even more dominant.
It is Hamilton’s fourth successive victory in the poll.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who secured two wins this year, is 90 points adrift in second.
Hamilton’s closest rival in the championship Vettel slotted into third, two points shy of Verstappen but two places higher than last year.
But Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas is at the foot of the top 10, one place lower than he was in this ranking when at Williams in 2016.
Mercedes protege Esteban Ocon is the highest new entry, coming in at number five, one place behind Daniel Ricciardo but ahead of world champions Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.
Ocon has had an impressive season for Force India, scoring points in all but two races to finish eighth in the drivers’ standings, 13 adrift of team-mate Sergio Perez.
Nico Hulkenberg is the other new entry, at number nine, with Renault team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr finishing two points ahead in joint seventh in the poll.
Perez drops out of the top 10, along with last year’s world champion Nico Rosberg, who retired at the end of 2016.
Autosport’s 2017 team bosses’ top 10
| Driver | Points | Change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | 233 | – | |
| 2 | Max Verstappen | 143 | – | |
| 3 | Sebastian Vettel | 141 | Up 2 | |
| 4 | Daniel Ricciardo | 112 | – | |
| 5 | Esteban Ocon | 73 | New entry | |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | 65 | – | |
| 7 = | Kimi Raikkonen | 49 | – | |
| 7 = | Carlos Sainz Jr | 49 | Up 2 | |
| 9 | Nico Hulkenberg | 47 | New entry | |
| 10 | Valtteri Bottas | 39 | Down 1 | |