Hamilton & Co. will be looking over their shoulders heading into this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix as rivals seek to start new season by shaking up the reigning champions
Melbourne: Mercedes are looking over their shoulder heading into this weekend's Australian Grand Prix as rivals seek to mark the start of a new era for Formula One by unseating the reigning champions as the sport's dominant force.
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The German marque has won 51 of the last 59 races and wrapped up both the driver's and constructors' titles for the last three years straight. But in a major rules overhaul, cars this year will feature fatter tyres and heavily-revised aerodynamics aimed at making them upto five seconds a lap faster, more spectacular to watch and harder to drive.
The far-reaching nature of the changes, with all teams having to start again from scratch, could give rivals the chance to halt the Mercedes juggernaut in its tracks, with the reigning champions certainly expecting a stiffer challenge.
"I'm really up for a challenge, I'm up for a fight and that's what I prepared for," said triple champion Lewis Hamilton at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit yesterday. "As far as I'm aware no team has won back-to-back through rule changes. So that is our goal as a team."
Despite the rules shakeup Mercedes head into the season as the team to beat.
With former team-mate and reigning champion Nico Rosberg having retired and replaced by former Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton, too, goes into the year as the odds-on favourite for a fourth world title. But pre-season testing at Spain's Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya indicated the battle up front will be a lot closer than in recent years.
Mercedes completed the most laps of any team over the eight days of winter running but it was Ferrari who topped the timesheets. And while lap times count for little given the varying fuel loads and engine settings teams run, the Italian marque weren't too far off their German rivals on the mileage charts either.
The Italian team's form surprised many in the paddock, including Hamilton, prompting the Briton to tip the Maranello-based squad as the favourites.
But, after heading into last year as Mercedes' closest challengers and hoping to battle for the title only to end the season without a win, Ferrari are being careful to manage expectations.
"We can be reasonably happy …," the team's four-time champion Sebastian Vettel told reporters yesterday. "Decent mileage, we didn't have any major issues with the car. Hopefully, we can carry that momentum into the first race."
Red Bull will also be hoping to get into the mix this weekend and turn the battle for victory into a three-way thriller.
The team ran a low-key testing programme but are expected to introduce a raft of updates to the basic configuration they ran their challenger in over the winter in Spain.
Home hero Daniel Ricciardo, gunning to become the first Australian to win his home race since it became a world championship event in 1985, will certainly be hoping the changes can unlock enough performance to give him a shot at victory.
"It'll be nice," said the ever-smiling 27-year-old. "I think if anyone could win just one race, they'd always say their home (race). So, that'd be cool."
One driver who heads into Sunday's race hoping simply to finish is Fernando Alonso. The double champion and new team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne have had a trying time in testing with their McLaren team's running severely limited by a lack of performance and reliability woes from their Honda engine.
"Equal engines for everyone," the Spaniard joked when asked what was on his F1 wish list. "The first step will be to work on reliability before we can make any assumptions or predictions about performance," he had said in a team preview issued earlier in the week.
The 2017 season will also be Liberty Media's first as F1's owners and the first in decades without former commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone at the helm.
The U.S.-based media and entertainment company completed its purchase of the sport's commercial rights in January and is set to begin enacting its vision for a more inclusive, fan-friendly F1 right away.
51 No. of races Mercedes have won in their last 59 GP events
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