Realistic Expectations for Mercedes in 2016 Formula 1 Season
It was soon after Lewis Hamilton's victory in the Belgian Grand Prix on August 23 last year when Mercedes' 2016 season began.
His sixth victory of 2015 at Spa-Francorchamps saw Hamilton extend his points lead over team-mate Nico Rosberg to 28 points and establish a 67-point advantage over third-placed Sebastian Vettel, instantly stifling the excitement surrounding the Ferrari driver's victory at the previous round in Hungary.
With just eight races remaining, the title was almost theirs, the fat lady was beginning to clear her throat and their work for the year was, to all intents and purposes, complete.
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So a fortnight later, at the Italian Grand Prix, Mercedes spent all of their remaining engine-development tokens on a "tactical" upgrade, per the official Formula One website—introducing an initial incarnation of their 2016-specification power unit and a new Petronas fuel.
At Monza—F1's self-styled Temple of Speed, where engines are tested more rigorously than any other—here was an opportunity for Mercedes to identify and resolve any teething troubles with their new powertrain.
But none appeared.
"It looked quite frightening," wept Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, per ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson, after Hamilton finished the first free-practice session—the very first on-track appearance for this engine—more than 1.5 seconds quicker than Vettel.
And then something strange happened.
Without a serious mechanical failure in the 11 grands prix until that point, Mercedes suffered two retirements in two races.
Rosberg's DNF at Monza was, admittedly, circumstantial after a leak in the cooling system, per the team's official Twitter account, forced him to revert to a much older engine, which finally burst into flames in the closing stages. But Hamilton's retirement in Singapore, where Vettel won comfortably on a day Mercedes produced their worst performance in two years, felt far more serious.
What on earth had they done? Had they made the grave error of tampering with a winning formula? Were they, as with Lewis' late pit stop in Monaco, guilty of being a little too clever for their own good?
Could their willingness to push boundaries and fast-track new parts ultimately cost one of their drivers the world championship? Or offer Vettel a way back into the title fight?
Those concerns, however, were soon proven unfounded as Mercedes won each of the final six races, ensuring they not only claimed the constructors' and drivers' championships in style with multiple rounds to spare but could enter 2016 with a near-perfect foundation to defend them.
Their ability to see further than tomorrow—to not only implement a long-term approach but to remain faithful to it, no matter what the initial evidence may suggest—has been the defining quality of Mercedes' astronomical success over the last two seasons.
And while there is a real appetite for Ferrari to provide a stern challenge in 2016, it is fanciful to think a team with just 15 wins in the last seven years—and who, as Sergio Marchionne recently told Autosport's Lawrence Barretto, delayed the development of their new car—can fight evenly with an outfit who have won 32 of the last 38 grands prix.
But that does not mean to say that Ferrari, even if they remain some distance behind Mercedes, cannot influence the two-time world champions.
As team boss Toto Wolff told Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble at last year's Brazilian GP, where Hamilton and Rosberg evaluated a new suspension design and an S-duct in practice, Ferrari's close proximity to Mercedes in 2015 had encouraged the team to contemplate an innovative design with their 2016 chassis to maintain their status as F1's leading team.
Considering that last year's W06 car was almost identical to 2014's W05, a bolder approach—despite Wolff's claim that "you can get it pretty wrong if you go for an evolution of a car that performs pretty well already"—may be less than ideal for Mercedes, who according to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson had the best chassis in 2015.
But while it is likely that any changes to the car will work, their rivals can still cling to the hope that Mercedes, in their efforts to remain at the front of the grid, may somehow have been spooked down the wrong development path.
As well as altering their approach to car design, Mercedes should also be forced to change their treatment of their drivers in 2016 having taken much pride in allowing Hamilton and Rosberg to race freely since the beginning of 2014.
Following the final three races of 2015, when Rosberg claimed the most impressive victories of his career at a time Hamilton, fresh from claiming his third world championship, suffered a noticeable drop in form, the current state of play between the Mercedes drivers is difficult to assess.
Can Lewis—having admitted he has no clear goal in mind for the remainder of his career after matching Ayrton Senna's title tally, per BBC Sport's Benson—be trusted to perform with the intensity, motivation and focus required to win three in a row?
And as good as Nico looked in those so-called non-championship races in Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi, will he be capable of maintaining that form when the pressures associated with a title battle return?
As noted at the beginning of 2016, should Mercedes persist with their policy of equality, they will risk handing a major advantage to Vettel, who—with a clear No. 2 driver in Kimi Raikkonen—will be in an ideal position to exploit any tension between Hamilton and Rosberg.
Wollf's comments, per Autosport's Ian Parkes, that Rosberg will be forced to wait for a new contract suggests the team are slowly yet surely shaping the German into a nice, little, obedient No. 2 driver to guard against the Ferrari threat, and careful management will be required to ensure it doesn't have a detrimental effect on inter-team relations.
Much like the last two seasons, the only way Mercedes will be beaten in 2016 is if they somehow manage to beat themselves through a combination of poor decision making, scruffy driving and misfortune.
The advantage of being so dominant is that Mercedes can always focus on the next step, the next level, the next season, and for a team of such diligence, meticulousness and preparation only the very best is good enough.
A third successive drivers' and constructors' title triumph, 15-plus grand prix victories and a podium appearance at each and every race should be the targets.
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