The cynics among us may look upon the upcoming F1 season and know that there are only 2 certainties: the halo, and Mercedes running away with the championship. However, we can only really confirm the halo at this point, as times are looking pretty close in testing.
We’re happy to report that the cars are definitely slightly faster than last year’s – even with the additional drag and weight penalty imposed by the new bodywork. The unofficial track record for Catalunya from 2008 was finally beaten by over a second by Vettel in the Ferrari, with a ridiculously quick 1m17.1 on the second-last day of Winter Testing.
However, rumours are rife in the paddock that the Mercedes still is leaving the competition standing – they just haven’t tried on the new (and fastest) hypersoft tyres yet. It’s clear that one can only really tell what’s happening with regards to the pecking order once we get to Melbourne at the end of March.