Mercedes under pressure from easy-to-drive Ferrari

THE message coming out of the first Formula 1 pre-season test was as clear as it gets at this time of year — Ferrari are a step ahead of the field, and world champions Mercedes have some catching up to do.

The Ferrari was quick every time it went out, got down to fast times with apparent ease, looked comfortable to drive and responsive out on the track, and was reliable. Although things at Mercedes improved considerably on the final day, their times were not coming as easily or frequently.

That was the feeling even before Mercedes’ drivers began to talk to the media, and when they did, they backed it up.

“Ferrari are very, very strong right now, as you have seen,” Lewis Hamilton said. “They are racking up great mileage as well. It appears that they have a better package than they had last year, which means it is going to be even more of a challenge for us.”

“No matter which kind of fuel load or engine modes they’re running,” his teammate Valtteri Bottas said, “Whatever you try to correct for, in any case they are quick. Both short runs and long runs. So I think we feel at this point they’re going to be a bit ahead.

“In terms of car behaviour, we still have work to do getting the balance together. With the new rules, it’s going to be a big development race. We don’t think anyone is going with this type of car in this test to the first race, including us.

“We do have new parts coming for the first race. [But] we can’t really rely on that being an upgrade. We do need, even with this spec of car, to try to make it better and quicker.

In the context of Mercedes’ five consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ championship doubles, these claims are going to be taken by many with at least a pinch of salt.

Speaking on the final day of the test, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was keen to downplay the significance of the results so far.

“The performance has no sense for now because it remains testing,” said the team’s new recruit, who was immediately at home and very quick in the red car. “They are probably not pushing and we are not either. We don’t know how much the others are sandbagging so we’ll see at the first race.”

That translates as: I’ll believe Mercedes are lagging behind when I see it — for now, let’s assume they are not showing their true pace. Or ‘sandbagging’, as F1 lexicon has it.

Even with their improvement on the final day, the evidence suggests Mercedes would not be the team to beat if the first race of the season was tomorrow.

It is always difficult to accurately assess where teams stand after just four days of winter running — there are too many variables.

Nevertheless, as the first test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya progressed, an impression formed. What follows is based on assessing timing data, and information from senior figures across the sport.

It’s important to say at this point that even the teams, who have vastly more data and ability to analyse it than outsiders, don’t know for sure. As one senior figure put it: “You’re trying to glean too much information from too little data. And it’s the same for us.”

But that does not mean you have to throw your arms in the air, give up and just wait to see how the cards fall in qualifying in Melbourne next month. After all, where’s the fun in that?

There are things that can be done to clear away some of the confusion, and discern some shapes in the fog.

The list of headline fastest lap times set by each team is as good as meaningless. It is topped by Renault, followed by Toro Rosso and Alfa Romeo (the former Sauber team). Mercedes and Ferrari are fourth and fifth, and Red Bull only eighth.

The problem with the headline times is that the drivers are using different tyres, and the list takes no account of the amount of fuel on board.

However, it is possible to make a best effort to correct for those two things.

Teams never reveal their fuel loads but one can assess factors such as the length of the run on which times were set, and therefore work out the minimum amount of fuel each driver must have had on board and correct for it. It’s not an absolute gauge, but it gets closer to reality.

You can also add in the performance difference of the tyre used, and calculate the time back to a baseline for a single compound.

This is not an exact science either — not everyone agrees on what the off-sets are between each of the tyres. In Spain this week, Pirelli’s own estimate for the gap between two of the five types of tyre was three times larger than that of one of the teams.

But one can take Pirelli’s own estimates, add a few opinions from varying teams, look at the evidence of each drivers’ times, create a ballpark figure, and apply it across the board.

From there, one can calculate a figure for the best fuel and tyre-corrected time by each team. Many variables remain — including how hard the team were using the engine — but this method usually gets a result that is not too far away from reality. — BBC Sport