Is the threat to Mercedes real?

Ferrari set the pace during testing and looked good over long runs, raising hopes that Mercedes has a fight on its hands

- Ben Anderson

Mercedes looked in almost impenetrable shape after the first week of pre-season testing at Barcelona. The W08 set the pace and logged almost 100 more laps than any other car; star driver Lewis Hamilton called it the most detailed car his Formula 1 team had ever built and said it looked “a thousand times better than everyone else’s” – and that was just in basic specification.

The prospects for Mercedes’ rivals seemed truly frightening. F1’s dominant team was already tweaking some of its new aerodynamic parts, preparing an upgrade package for the engine and chassis between tests, and plotting a new campaign of world domination to begin at the first race in Australia.

Mercedes looked strong straight out of the box, with a suggestion of plenty more to come, perhaps even a 1m18s lap of Barcelona’s Catalunya circuit. That lap time ultimately came – but from Ferrari, not Mercedes.

Ferrari has been much-maligned after a troubled 2016 season, but it looked genuinely good in week one; a silent star – not saying much off the track, but doing some pretty encouraging talking on it.

Sebastian Vettel lapped well within three tenths of Valtteri Bottas, and didn’t use the softest available tyres, his car looking strong, stable, driveable, consistent, and most importantly fast.

Ferrari is a renowned testing showboater, so there was reluctance to get too excited. That’s exactly what company president Sergio Marchionne did in 2016, when the team matched Mercedes in pre-season testing but subsequently failed to win a race, let alone challenge for the world championship. So these positive early signs were viewed with extreme caution.