Mercedes heads into next weekend’s season opening Australian grand prix as the overwhelming early 2014 favourite.<\/p>\n
“Mercedes and Williams look very strong,” agreed German driver Nico Hulkenberg, whose similarly Mercedes-powered Force India team has also impressed in winter testing.<\/p>\n
“They’re standing out.\u00a0 McLaren is also fast,” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.\u00a0 “At the moment, the Mercedes teams are a bit in front.”<\/p>\n
Mercedes’ three customer teams – McLaren, Williams and Force India – appear to have hit the jackpot with clearly the best turbo V6 ‘power unit’ in F1’s new greener era.<\/p>\n
“At the moment that’s right,” Hulkenberg admitted, “but we all know how long a formula one season is.\u00a0 Let’s wait and see.<\/p>\n
“On the last day (in Bahrain) Ferrari did a strong laptime, and (Daniel) Ricciardo has also done a 1.35 in the Red Bull.<\/p>\n
“I’m assuming Red Bull will solve the problems sooner or later,” he said.<\/p>\n
Williams, ninth of the eleven teams last year, has emerged as the surprise dark horse for 2014, having switched over the winter to Mercedes power.<\/p>\n
“They (Williams) have never had problems in the tests, have always been fast, although not quite as fast as Mercedes,” Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko told Austrian Servus TV.<\/p>\n
Mercedes F1 chairman Niki Lauda said it is possible the German squad’s works team might be pushed by its British customer in 2014.<\/p>\n
“It (Williams beating Mercedes) can happen,” said the great triple world champion.<\/p>\n
“Our customers are very important for us, and if they can beat us, this is also good motivation and a very constructive competition,” added Lauda.<\/p>\n
According to Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, however – whose Maranello squad has had a conspicuously low-profile winter – it is too soon to predict the outcome of the Melbourne race in just over a week.<\/p>\n
“Let’s see how many cars get to the finish of the first race,” he is quoted at the Geneva motor show by Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it is rumoured Ferrari has been focused most specifically on reliability during the winter, and still has some performance to unfurl for the actual races.<\/p>\n
“We are careful,” Mercedes’ Toto Wolff told the APA news agency, “as some teams have not fully revealed the potential of their cars.<\/p>\n
“I have no doubt Red Bull and Ferrari will be strong contenders,” he added.\u00a0 “Force India and Williams are also fast enough to win races.<\/p>\n
“It will be interesting!” added Wolff.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mercedes heads into next weekend’s season opening Australian grand prix as the overwhelming early 2014 favourite. “Mercedes and Williams look very strong,” agreed German driver Nico Hulkenberg, whose similarly Mercedes-powered Force India team has also impressed in winter testing. “They’re standing out.\u00a0 McLaren is also fast,” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.\u00a0 “At the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,576,5340,5284,448,598],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21170,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21169\/revisions\/21170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}