Grading Pascal Wehrlein's Start to Life in Formula 1

Pascal Wehrlein may be regarded as Mercedes' answer to Max Verstappen, but there was a very real danger the German wouldn't be in Formula One in 2016.

When the Mercedes-backed youngster won the prestigious DTM touring car championship in October 2015, just two weeks after the Manor F1 team announced a deal to use Mercedes engines, it felt like the ideal time for one of the more predictable driver deals of 2016 to be confirmed.

Yet the wait for the news of his graduation to F1 went on and on to the point where Wehrlein told F1i.com's Chris Medland he was more likely to defend his DTM title—or switch to the GP2 feeder series—than join Lewis Hamilton and Co. on the grid.

However, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had a plan.

Having previously told ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson how Manor—a team who only emerged from administration just months earlier—stood to earn more money from signing pay drivers than agreeing to an engine-plus-driver deal, Wolff came back with one last offer.

As reported by Autosport (h/t Eurosport), a fee of up to €6 million, in addition to access to Mercedes' half-scale wind tunnel, was deemed satisfactory by Manor, and Wehrlein's contract was finally signed and sealed just 12 days before the start of winter testing in February.

On the evidence of Wehrlein's performances across the first half of the season, all three parties will be delighted they managed to get the deal over the line in the end.

Following our analysis of the two other rookies on the 2016 grid—Renault's Jolyon Palmer and Manor's Rio Haryanto, who has since been dropped by the team—here's what we make of Wehrlein's start to life in F1.

Throughout their time as team-mates, we were repeatedly told Haryanto was more than a match for Wehrlein in one-lap conditions.

While that was true to some extent—Haryanto won five of their 12 head-to-head qualifying battles—he never outqualified his team-mate by more than 0.157 seconds when both drivers set a time.

Compare that to Wehrlein, who was hardly renowned for his raw pace in DTM but often established a significant advantage when he did start ahead of the Indonesian by producing almost superhuman qualifying performances.

The first sign of Wehrlein's speed appeared under the lights in Bahrain, where he outqualified Haryanto by 1.384 seconds and went on to tell the team's official website he was disappointed to just "miss out on" pipping Daniil Kvyat's Red Bull to a place in the second segment of qualifying.

He enjoyed an even larger gap in Canada, although the final margin of 1.453 seconds between the Manor drivers was distorted due to Haryanto's spin on his final run, before that Q2 appearance finally came his way in Austria.

At the first venue on the 2016 calendar where he had some prior racing experience, Wehrlein was 0.461 seconds quicker than 19th-placed Haryanto in Q1 before going on to equal Manor's best-ever grid position of 12th on just his ninth weekend with the team.

It is also worth mentioning his performance in heavy rain in Q1 in Hungary, where—as Wehrlein told the team's official website—he was on course for ninth place with a lap equal to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen before a red flag appeared just 0.8 seconds before he crossed the line, costing him another day in the sun.

Being occasionally beaten by a driver of Haryanto's calibre—someone who openly admitted thinking "wow" whenever he was "not far off his time," per the official F1 website—has reflected poorly on Wehrlein, who loses a grade for his lack of consistency on Saturdays and his rookie error on a drying track in China.

But the flashes of brilliance we have seen prove he is a driver capable of taking Manor to places and positions they once dreamed of going.

At the halfway stage of 2016, Wehrlein is 17th in the drivers' championship with a single point to his name.

That he remains ahead of Esteban Gutierrez and Palmer, both of whom have generally had faster cars at their disposal, only underlines just how successful his debut season—a season in which he is yet to finish behind his team-mate on track—has been.

His day of destiny, of course, came in the Austrian GP, where he proved his qualifying result was no fluke by emerging from a race of ups and downs to finish 10th, securing only Manor's second-ever points finish—and their first in more than two years—despite running last within 30 laps of the chequered flag.

But to focus all the attention to his performance at the Red Bull Ring would be unfair, for Wehrlein has strung together several other notable races.

A mature drive in just his second start in Bahrain allowed him to finish 13th in an error-ridden race, where he split the two Sauber drivers and, with the Mercedes power unit behind him, frustrated Renault's Kevin Magnussen for a time.

He was on course to equal that result in Monaco, where he followed race winner Hamilton's lead by switching straight from extreme-wet tyres to ultrasofts rather than bridging those stints with a spell on intermediates.

That put Wehrlein ahead of Romain Grosjean, against whom he defended well, but two 10-second time penalties—one for ignoring blue flags, the other for speeding behind the virtual safety car—saw him drop to 14th behind the Haas driver.

Such scruffiness was also evident in Azerbaijan, where he was given a final warning for exceeding track limits prior to his retirement, and—to a lesser extent—Britain, where he was among the few not to emerge from the Abbey gravel trap after spinning on a drying track.

Yet we have also seen a certain amount of grit from Wehrlein, who suffered floor damage on the way to the grid in Canada but still held off Felipe Nasr to finish 17th before finishing ahead of Marcus Ericsson and Palmer in Germany despite losing a front-wing endplate in the early laps.

Wehrlein may have competed in DTM for three seasons, but his extensive testing with Mercedes and Force India since late 2014 meant he was one of the best-prepared rookies to arrive in F1 in the modern era.

It was slightly surprising, then, that Haryanto—who, despite racing with Pirellis in GP2, admitted F1 tyres were "completely different" to anything he had experienced before, per the official F1 website—was more adept at managing his rubber at the very start of the year.

Indeed, after his very first race in Australia, Wehrlein was left complaining about the "quite big tyre degradation" he suffered compared to those around him, per Motorsport.com's Adam Cooper.

Come the third round in China, however, that had changed, with Wehrlein making a breakthrough by ensuring his two middle stints on the soft tyres (12 and 16 laps) lasted longer than Haryanto's (10 and 12 laps) on the same compound.

The German's naivety was noticeable at the following race in Russia, where—in his efforts to keep up with the faster Saubers—he pushed too hard, ruined the set of soft tyres that should have taken him to the end and was forced to make an extra pit stop.

But his natural feel for an F1 car was there for all to see in the drying conditions in Monaco, a circuit he had never raced at before, where he humiliated Haryanto.

While Wehrlein made his single set of ultrasofts last from Lap 32 until the chequered flag, Haryanto—unable to generate sufficient temperature—spent just 13 laps on his first set of purple-striped tyres, ultimately finishing fours laps behind the race winner and two adrift of his own team-mate.

And then came that weekend in Austria, where—after giving Manor a huge boost of confidence in qualifying—he told the team's official website the race would be "a different story" and how the MRT05 car's fundamental lack of rear downforce would see him fall back.

An ill-timed safety car period ensured he did tumble down the order, but Wehrlein climbed back up again with a logic-defying 47-lap stint on soft tyres to come away with a point.

There remains room for improvement, but that performance highlighted he is increasingly at ease with the vagaries of modern F1 rubber.

Behind the wheel of what is still the least competitive package on the grid, there is a large emphasis on Wehrlein to make his moves at the start of the grand prix, putting himself ahead of and frustrating faster cars.

According to F1 Fanatic, the German is the biggest mover on first laps in 2016, making up 24 positions at an average of two per race.

Sure, the demolition-derby starts in China, Russia and Spain have undoubtedly contributed to such impressive figures, but Wehrlein's controlled aggression and intelligent positioning of the car are behind his habit of making strong early progress.

On his very first racing lap in Australia, for instance, he made up a total of seven places simply by hanging his car around the outside of Turns 1 and 3 after an excellent launch from 22nd on the grid.

Even when he started from an abnormally high spot in Austria, Wehrlein displayed the same racecraft, repassing Grosjean around the outside of the blind, fast Turn 5 after being ambushed by the Haas driver and Carlos Sainz Jr. at Turn 3.

He hardly looked out of place during a feisty race in Bahrain, where he battled the wounded Force Indias and had an enjoyable late duel with Ericsson, with the youngster also impressive in defence in Shanghai, where the early safety car promoted Wehrlein and Haryanto to fourth and eighth respectively as others pitted.

While Haryanto was overawed and overwhelmed, dropping to 14th within a lap of the restart, Wehrlein immediately harried Fernando Alonso and lost only one place on the same lap, driving aggressively but respectfully when he knew he was fighting a losing battle.

Perhaps it is a result of his time in a series as professional as DTM, or maybe he is reluctant to defend so stubbornly in such an uncompetitive car, but it is worth noting Wehrlein—unlike most youngsters these days—tends not to weave or make multiple, late changes of direction in defence.

It will not be until he gets his hands on more consistently competitive machinery that we will know just how good a racer Wehrlein is, but the early signs are promising.

In Manor's six-and-a-half seasons in F1, several drivers—including some very competent racing drivers—have come and gone without making a real impact, with only two daring to drag the team along with them to greatness.

The first, of course, was the late Jules Bianchi, who registered Manor's first-ever points finish in the 2014 Monaco GP and became a focal point for the sport's smallest team.

With new ownership, new management, a new colour scheme and a new outlook, the Manor of today is already very different to the one Bianchi knew prior to that dreadful afternoon at Suzuka almost two years ago.

But Wehrlein has brought the same energy, excitement and inspiration to the team.

In his debut season, the "little prince" of Mercedes has established himself as a polished grand prix driver, and it is all the more frightening that Wehrlein is still very much in the process of readjusting to single-seater, open-cockpit racing after three years in touring cars.

If he is this impressive in year one, after all, just how good could he become in 2017, '18 and beyond?

The imminent arrival of fellow Mercedes protege Esteban Ocon, who has been signed by Manor for the remaining nine races of the season and arrives in F1 with more fanfare than any driver since Verstappen, should reveal more about Wehrlein's ultimate potential.

But he is without doubt the rookie of 2016 so far.

All timing and tyre data sourced from the official F1 website, Manor's official website, the FOM television feed and emailed Pirelli infographics.

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