In the last of this series of articles we will take a look at how team mates fared against each other in the teams that finished in the top three in the Championship. Franklin switched Jochem van Snelheid out for Puccio Giodano after just three races - but how did the Italian fare against the mighty Enrique Ruiz? And both top two teams in the Championship ran rookies, but did they struggle against far more experienced team mates? FranklinJochem van Snelheid was given his big break being signed by Franklin, yet despite taking pole position in a wet Malaysian qualifying in only his second race for the team, he was dropped after three outings. The highly rated Puccio Giodano was drafted in from Ocelot to replace him, but how did he get on?
While skewed by the tremendous wet pole lap in Malaysia, Jochem ended up with an overall average qualifying gap on Ruiz of 0.086 seconds. Meanwhile once Giodano partnered the Brazilian the gap ended up the smallest of any team mates, at just 0.008, but in Ruizs favour. Yes, Ruiz had the beating of Jochem early on, but there is no way of telling whether he would have improved. He did in 2016 - vastly - against James Harding, though admittedly a much different calibre of driver. A switch to Ocelot did not hurt though, but his replacements reputation has certainly been tarnished. Giodano was rather comprehensively swept under the rug compared to expectations and returns to Ocelot (or Pegasus as they will be known) in 2018 with his tail between his legs and all of the pressure on to thrash his rookie team mate. DS MathershawAdrien Simon remained as ever and picked up yet another new team mate in the form of Allar Kangur, after Olen Inman - who he had just beaten to the 2016 title - was unceremoniously shown the door. Kangur joined as the reigning VWRS Champion and had impressed in the young driver test, but a rookie against the defending Champ, surely it was only ever going to go one way? As the graph shows, it did. Simon had the beating of Kangur pretty much all year long, but the Estonian put in a valiant effort. The majority of his problems - like most rookies this season - stemmed from poor qualifyings, but he proved later in the year that when he could put the car in a good starting position, he could make a race of it. 16-2 and 8-2 in qualifying and race battles is a somewhat unfair scoreline, but his 116 points to Simons 191 is a fairer reading and a sterling first effort. Given the aforementioned qualifying woes for Kangur, this is a foregone conclusion. The gap was only 0.420, not as much as some other sets of team mates, and only twice was he more than a second back from Simon, and both of these were in the wet. Germany qualifying, the Bahrain race, and a stunning United States weekend were the only times Kangur beat Simon in 2017, but he showed clear signs of improvement. His drive at Indianapolis was that of pure class when those around him lost their heads. He did not perform as well against his team as other rookies, but he arguably had the toughest task. DowntonThe big question of Downtons 2017 pre-season was did Marcus Thunder jump, or was he pushed? The young Brit had held a candle to their superstar Nathaniel Powers in the last two years but the team had a feisty young Dutchman chomping at the bit. Once the season started though those questions vanished as Klaas van Snelheid proved to everyone he was there on merit. Did he perform to expectations however? Well, he tried. Klaas ended the season just two points behind the new double Champion which was incredible, but delve further and he was slightly further off than first appears. He was behind in qualifying 13-5 and 9-4 in races, and usually only came out on top when something else affected Powers race. Klaas did good - no doubt about it - but brilliant is stretching it. Save for three races, the gap at Downton was never bigger than half a second regardless of whoever was ahead, but in the end the sheer number of times Powers qualified ahead gave him the average gap advantage, standing at 0.112 seconds - remarkably closer than would be expected given the 13-5 scoreline. As mentioned earlier, the four times Klaas beat Powers to the flag were usually because the eventual Champion was caught up in other incidents. In Japan he was nearly run into the pit wall by Olen Inman, in Belgium he was caught up with back markers, and in Mexico a slow pit stop lost him track position. Take those out and it looks far less promising, but Klaas did keep his nose clean and pick up results when Powers did not, though often those retirements were also non-fault. Frankly though, it is incredible Klaas was still in the battle at all come Brazil, as the stats indicate it should have been over long before.
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