Sky F1's Simon Lazenby looks ahead to the new F1 season and asks whether Mercedes' recent dominance may be set to thaw...
Thursday 13 December 2018 15:20, UK
Usually in late March when we set off for the first race of the year, the magnolias are in flower and splashes of blue and pink begin to colour our first impressions of springtime.
Not so this year as the 'beast from the east's little cousin frosted the pavements and reminded us that winter didn't fancy giving way to the daffodils just yet.
As I left for Australia, I wondered if the weather was a portent for the season ahead; an icy metaphor for the long dominance of Mercedes and their impenetrable hold over all that have tried to bloom beneath them.
Every year, we arrive in Melbourne with fresh hope that this will be the year that three or four teams will take the fight to the front of the grid but in the last decade, more often than not, we have been disappointed. The early signs from winter testing are pointing to the fastest, most reliable Silver Arrows yet.
Word is they could be as much as 0.4/0.5 seconds clear of the field. Like everybody, I hope this isn't the case, for the sake of the show but it's the hope that always makes this first race in Albert Park essential viewing.
No one truly knows until Saturday evening what the early pecking order is and this spring there are far more hopeful shoots trying to break through the Mercedes permafrost than last year.
We know that Ferrari have a fast car but have they strayed away from what made them contenders in 2017? They have a higher rake this year, an extended wheelbase, trimmed side pods, vents in the floor and they've even slotted the wing mirrors. But in testing it looked a 'lazier' car than the Mercedes and one that haemorrhaged oil too!
If the early signs are that they have drifted backwards then they will not only be gobbled up by Red Bull but one suspects that knives will be drawn at Maranello.
It struck me that many observers jumped on the 'McLaren still in crisis' bandwagon a bit early this year.
Ok, so they only completed 599 laps in testing, the fewest of all the teams but having been with them for their filming day in Rioja in the off season, the mood is entirely different from a year ago.
McLaren's problems were nothing major. A couple of hydraulic leaks and an oil leak that damaged a turbo. The team aren't worried and realise they are in a far better position than they were with Honda.
In February their mechanics could complete an engine change in six hours. A month on, they already have it down to three hours thirty and by Barcelona, they will have knocked another hour off that record.
The Renault power unit is a race-winning engine. It may lack 40-50 bhp to the top two but the battle of the McLaren and Red Bull chassis will be utterly fascinating in itself. Max Verstappen is used to having an orange army chase him around Europe, this season two matching McLarens may well join the throng.
And then there is the Renault works team itself; a sleeping giant that is beginning to awaken. With Sainz and Hulkenberg at the wheels and that distinctive colour scheme evoking a couple of bees full of the joys of the new season, the mood is harmonious at Enstone and probably will be until one gets the better of the other. Hulkenberg, the eternal nearly man has his hands full this year.
You get the feeling if he doesn't beat Sainz over the course of 2018, then nearly might be as good as it gets for the German. It is a pairing though worthy of this re-emerging force.
The surprise package may well be Haas. Questions are already being raised by some of the more quizzical and vocal team principals in the paddock about why they looked so quick in testing.
The big question for the rest of us is can they turn it into something tangible and challenge the upper middle order.
They are another threat to a Force India team looking to defend last year's fourth position in the Constructors' Championship. With perhaps the smallest budget of all the teams, how far they stretch that cash is nothing short of miraculous. In Esteban Ocon they have a superstar in the making and if Valtteri Bottas stumbles again I expect Ocon to be the man to replace him in 2019.
One final thought or rather a personal wish for the coming months. Watching the resurgence of Roger Federer over the last year and more recently Tiger Woods in the last couple of tournaments reminds us that the story that resinates most in sport is the comeback; The return of the fallen champion.
Whilst they are winning and in their prime there is universal admiration but when they've faltered, stared into the abyss of retirement and still find a way to return to their former glory, it is compulsive viewing. I, for one, would love to see that happen to Fernando Alonso. Woods got a new back, Federer a new knee, give Alonso the right equipment and his talent will do the rest.
Hope, as they say, springs eternal.
