Mercedes have not looked this vulnerable before a season since rising to the top - their...

[ASFN Admin]

There is a little less than 10 minutes left on the clock of Formula One’s only pre-season test. Lewis Hamilton is lining up a quick lap. He is on the softest compound of tyres - it looks like a qualifying simulation run. Max Verstappen’s Red Bull is top, a second quicker than anything Mercedes have done all day. It has been a problematic test for Mercedes. Ten minutes earlier, Hamilton had been ready to start a hot lap but did a 360 at the final corner. Could this be the moment when Hamilton reveals a little more about the Mercedes W12? All day Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton have not reached top gear on the long pit straight – perhaps they have been sandbagging and bluffing? This time Hamilton gets to eighth gear. Turn one, two and three are all good, the car stuck to the ground. It looks fast, like a Mercedes should. Into the quick right-hander at turn four and out of it again but wide and twitchy on exit, off the track. He keeps the boot in – what will his first sector time be? 0.3 seconds down on Verstappen’s quickest. At sector two that stretches to nearly a whole second. Five minutes later the chequered flag drops on the day and the test. For Mercedes, it is arguably their most concerning showing ahead of a new season since they rose to the top in 2014. After a record seventh consecutive double title, are Mercedes F1's greatest ever team? It has been the usual order of things for their pre-season testing programs to be characterised by serenity, stability, and a relentless racking up of the miles. They would not often put in eye-catching lap times – between 2014 and 2019 they were only quickest in pre-season once – but would be there every day pounding away with an ominous reliability. Red Bull are characteristically slow starters. In 2021 the natural order looks to have been inverted. On day one of testing last year Mercedes totalled 173 laps around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. By the end of the three-day first test, they had taken that total to 494 laps or nearly 2,300km, a good deal more than any other team. After three days in Bahrain – a test characterised by excellent reliability for most teams – they finished with 304 laps and just 1645km, the fewest of all. A lost morning on day one due to a transmission issue brings into question the wisdom of being the only team not to conduct a "shakedown" on the W12 before testing began. For a team that usually leaves no stone unturned in their pursuit for brilliance – and one that is regularly vocal about this philosophy, always wary of the competition – it seemed unusual, even a little complacent. Verstappen and Red Bull ending the test quickest is neither here nor there. Headline times should be considered with an abundance of caution. We do not have any real idea what power unit modes teams were running, nor their fuel loads. Mercedes are likely to have sent the W12 out with more fuel than any other team.

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