Ferrari are in disarray, on their third team principal and second president in
one year. Their target of just a couple of race wins in 2015 demonstrates
how much of a threat they are expecting to be.
McLaren are entering a new era with Honda, who are arriving in the sport with
a year’s less knowledge of the vastly complicated V6 engines. It would be
astonishing if they are able to instantly challenge Mercedes.
Williams had a hugely impressive 2014 but, ultimately, with a customer
Mercedes engine and a significantly smaller budget, they will be
hard-pressed to mount a serious championship challenge.
And finally, Red Bull are still powered by Renault, an engine estimated to be
around 60bhp behind Mercedes at the end of 2014. If the French manufacturer
can get their act together, aided by a loophole which will allow engine
development in the middle of the season, then Red Bull might get close to
Mercedes by the end of the year.
No-one pegged them back through all of 2014
2014 ended largely as it began: with Mercedes in a position of unassailable
domination. As the table below shows, once they got their driver bust-up out
of the way in Belgium, no-one could get close.
Despite a reshuffled design team, without former technical director Bob Bell,
Mercedes will not have been standing still over the winter. The gap their
rivals must overcome is immense.
The last time a team was this dominant…
Mercedes did not quite manage to steal McLaren-Honda’s crown as ‘the most
dominant car ever’ last season, failing to win three races rather than just
one, but in every other way this was a performance as crushing.
What happened after McLaren had their astonishing 1988 season with the MP4-4?
1989 – two-way fight for the drivers’ title between team-mates Ayrton Senna
and Alain Prost. McLaren nearly double the points of nearest rivals,
Williams.
1990 – Closer this time, with Prost now at Ferrari, but McLaren still won both
the drivers and constructors championships.
1991 – Again, Nigel Mansell put up a decent fight for Williams, but McLaren
and Senna took both titles.
Bernie Ecclestone’s prediction that it may take three years before anyone can
catch Mercedes now does not seem so far-fetched.
Their drivers are controllable – just about
As last season proved, the main threat to Mercedes will come from within, from
the feuding of their two drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. The team
had their struggles – Monaco, Hungary and Belgium spring to mind – but the
pair just about managed to remain civil throughout the season.
Hamilton and Rosberg sharing a warm embrace after their title-decider in Abu
Dhabi is not what their rivals, hoping for more slip-ups, wanted to see.