Gary Anderson's Jerez test review

Everyone at Mercedes has cause to feel very happy with life after the first 2014 Formula 1 test at Jerez.

For what it's worth, the four fastest drivers (Kevin Magnussen, Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button) over the four days all used Mercedes engines but more significant was the mileage logged.

Mercedes engines completed 3874kms, almost twice as much as Ferrari, while the works Mercedes covered 1368km alone, 257km more than any other team's running amounted to. With this year's major regulation change, mileage was always going to be critical at Jerez.

All four of its teams were able to complete significant distances, even Force India which did have more 'new car' problems than some but then managed 81 laps on the final day.

So in terms of sorting out both car and engine problems, this puts the Mercedes teams in the best position. And that means the works team has to be in the strongest shape even though both McLaren and Williams set faster individual laptimes.

While reliability does not automatically equate to performance, given the complexity of these new 1.6-litre turbocharged power units, the two are closely related this early in development. After all, people go testing to understand different set-ups and therefore make the car go faster.

Gathering data is more critical than ever this winter © LAT

Balancing the way you use the torque from the internal combustion engine itself and the electrical power is going be vitally important, especially with the 100kg per race maximum fuel limit, which means about a one-third reduction in maximum fuel capacity compared to 2013. The more running you have completed, the more data you will have to optimise that equation.

But it's not just about the engines. When you go testing, you can also try things with the car. These are the normal set-up changes that you go through at a test such as different roll stiffness and different vertical stiffness. A change in vertical stiffness gives you a different ride height, so you have a matrix of set-up changes you want to work through.

No matter how much data you accumulate from simulations, it's difficult to come up with the perfect set-up without testing on track.

Add to that the bigger variations in terms of the engine - how you use the electrical power, the normally aspirated power, the turbo and how aggressive you can be with charging and discharging of the battery - and you have a far more complicated equation than in 2013. The more you run, the better you will understand that.

So compared to last year's pre-season testing, this means the workload has at least doubled - so you are in trouble if you don't make the most of those 12 pre-Melbourne days.

It will take time to know exactly how to tackle problems. Let's say the power delivery is a bit aggressive and the traction is not so good. Watching trackside, it appears Ferrari is in that situation. The question is, what do you do?

Do you start playing around with the mechanical set-up? Do you work on the differential set-up? Do you look at the way you are using the electrical torque? Do you look at the engine torque? There are far more parameters influencing the car and testing allows you to understand how these all fit together.

Mercedes even had time to begin race simulations © LAT

Log that understanding and when you get to the first race in Australia in mid-March, you have a deeper knowledge of how the car reacts to various changes and will be in a better position to set it up correctly. That makes mileage for every team and engine manufacturer absolutely essential.

What really impressed me about Mercedes was that it wasn't just doing short runs. It was able to do reasonably long runs, which will help to understand how the car works the tyres.

Even though a lot of the running done during the four days was on a Jerez-specific compound and track temperatures were relatively low, you can still get a feel for how the car treats the tyres over a stint. So Mercedes has been able to do plenty of that work, and as an engine supplier has given its customers the package to do that.

Ferrari, too, got similar work done. The works team managed 1111kms, second only to Mercedes, although the fact it has only two customer teams and Marussia did not appear until the third afternoon means it is behind in total engine mileage.

But even Marussia managed more miles than Red Bull. Adrian Newey's team completed only 21 laps over four days before packing up and going home early. Its problems, on top of the trouble Renault has been having, added up to a very worrying test for those using French power. Especially the one in Milton Keynes.

Caterham had its problems, but got more running than the other Renault teams © LAT

In total, Renault engines completed just 668kms (just over one sixth of what Mercedes achieved). At no time was a Renault car running with anything approach an optimised engine strategy, so effectively all of its teams will be starting from zero at the Bahrain test.

All they could do was check that the other car systems were working OK by running with more or less only internal combustion engine power. Out of 12 days of testing, the Renault teams have effectively squandered four of them.

Caterham got the most laps in, managing 336kms over the four days. The team uses the Red Bull gearbox, so even though there was no way maximum power was being put through that transmission, there was some proving of an element of Red Bull reliability there.

The Renault engine does have a problem and it is fixable. Then again, Renault said on Wednesday it was fixable overnight and it seems that this wasn't the case. A huge amount of work needs to be done before Bahrain and Renault seems to have left too much, too late and is well behind the eight-ball right now.

On top of that, Red Bull has its own problems with engine installation. It's all well and good pushing the limits, but it seems Newey might have gone too far and a step back needs to be taken before the team can start to move forward. Those eight days in Bahrain have to count to get the pre-season work done to avoid being behind all season.

That could be a huge disadvantage come Melbourne because nobody knows exactly what the racing is going to be like this year and every tiny scrap of data counts.

Bahrain will be interesting, because we will start to see more race-distance runs. Melbourne is a high fuel-use circuit so you might have to do your sims on 90kg instead as that would be equivalent to 100kg in Australia.

It's going to be fascinating to see the race simulations in Bahrain as the run progresses. You will be able to see how hard people are pushing. But I have no idea exactly what the race is going to be like and even on the grid the teams won't know. These first races are going to be about pitwall reaction.

No one knows how the racing will turn out © XPB

Is the best thing to drive flat-out for a while then throttle back, or do you sit at your average level all race? Then how does track position relate to that? The race time could be the same for either strategy, but it's a question of where you are relative to other cars at any given time that can make a big difference to the final result.

Having the quickest car has always been important, but contrary to what some expect, I suspect being on the front row will be even more important than ever before. It will mean you can dictate what you want to do.

But the days of disappearing into the distance have to be gone because you can't risk wasting fuel. If you hit a safety car period and lose that gap to whoever is behind you, you might just need that little extra you have saved to defend position.

To a greater or lesser extent, F1 has always been a fuel formula. But now there is both the 100kg per race maximum limit and the 100kg/hour maximum fuel flow rate so this aspect is absolutely critical.

My strategy if at the front would be to do a few aggressive laps and then control the gap from there. But if everybody is still together in one pack, an alternative strategy from someone in the following pack might allow them to gain track position.

If Jerez is anything to go by, it is going to be a fascinating season. While Mercedes has made a good start, there is still much to do at the two Bahrain tests. The first of them is on February 19-22, and it's going to be very interesting to follow.

Through AUTOSPORT.com and AUTOSPORT magazine, I am going to do my best to help you understand it all that little bit better.