Nico Hülkenberg
Nico Hülkenberg's decision to leave his long term home at Force India in favour of a new race seat at Renault proved to be a good choice. He immediately fitted right in at Enstone, finishing in the points on eight occasions over the course of 2017 including four times in the top six. In total, he won 43 of Renault's total of 57 championship points.
There was little competition to Hülkenberg from within the team for much of the year: he out-qualified his team mate Jolyon Palmer on every single one of the 16 races together, and by an average of 0.738 seconds - the biggest gap between any team mates on the grid in 2017.
He'll have a bigger challenge on his hands next year now that Carlos Sainz has arrived, but for now he's made a solid job of his first year at his new team. He even set a record this season, although it's not one he'll be happy to talk about: he's beaten Adrian Sutil's milestone of the most F1 starts without a podium appearance. It's now up to 135 and counting...
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