Why has no one challenged Mercedes?

Only 15 cars taking the start (and 11 finishing), utter domination by one team, plus a terrible first chapter in the reunion of one of the most powerful and famous car/engine combinations in Formula 1 history. This was not the competitive beginning to 2015 that F1 fans were hoping for.

After the final race of 2014, where Lewis Hamilton clinched his second world title and capped a season of total Mercedes dominance, the fact that Felipe Massa's Williams came within 2.576 seconds of denying Hamilton the 33rd grand prix victory of his career offered a glimmer of hope that the next campaign might, possibly, be different. That may yet be so, but in the first race of the season at Albert Park those hopes came to nothing.

Any expectations that Williams - the Mercedes customer team that came closest to denying the works outfit in a fair fight in 2014 - might put its engine partner under more pressure this year were dashed. Massa finished a distant fourth, as Hamilton led Nico Rosberg across the line to record Mercedes' 12th one-two finish in the last 20 races.

Sebastian Vettel's podium on his Ferrari debut marked the beginning of a revival for the Scuderia, but the gains made in Maranello over the winter have only lifted it slightly ahead of Williams in the race to be best-of-the-rest. The net gain compared with Mercedes is marginal - just a little over two tenths per lap over the course of this year's race compared with last year's (adjusted for the safety car periods that affected both events), from an original deficit of around eight tenths.

Williams has gone from chasing Mercedes to scrapping with Ferrari © LAT

For Williams there is no like-for-like comparison, since Valtteri Bottas compromised his 2014 event by striking a wall, but the team certainly doesn't look as strong at the start of this season as it did at the end of the last. Although Massa felt poor timing of his only pitstop cost him crucial ground in a very close fight with Vettel, Williams said tyre degradation gave it no other option. In short, fourth was arguably the best he could have managed.

So Mercedes' most likely challenger has slipped back, the only other full works team has narrowly hauled itself into a distant second spot, while the team that most closely challenged Mercedes across the balance of last year - Red Bull - has plummeted into the chasing pack and is now threatening to quit the sport.

Daniel Ricciardo finished a combative sixth at his home grand prix, after a weekend beset by various technical problems, but the Mercedes drivers lapped him. At least he got to keep this result, unlike the second place he lost in 2014 thanks to a fuel flow irregularity. But, most worryingly for Red Bull-Renault, it has fallen back substantially on pure pace this year, to the tune of almost 1.3s per lap if you compare this race to the 2014 edition.

Meanwhile, the team that eventually claimed both minor podium places in Melbourne in 2014 - McLaren - began its new era as a works partner to Honda as the slowest team on the grid (Manor didn't run). Jenson Button was the last of the classified finishers - a twice-lapped and point-less 11th.

By switching from a supply of customer Mercedes engines to immature Honda technology for 2015, McLaren has fallen away by a massive three seconds per lap comparing this race with last year's.

Here you have four of the most successful teams in the history of the sport, and all of them are nowhere near challenging Mercedes for victory. This led Red Bull boss Christian Horner to suggest F1's rule-makers need to act, or suffer the consequences of further-declining interest in F1, while the team's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko even went so far as to suggest Red Bull might quit the sport altogether if nothing is done...

"The FIA have a torque sensor on every engine, they can see what every power unit is producing, and they have the facts - they could quite easily come up with some form of equalisation," argued Horner.

Horner is calling for urgent changes © LAT

"When we were winning, and we were never winning to the advantage Mercedes had, I remember double diffusers were banned, exhausts were moved, flexible bodywork was prohibited, engine mapping mid-season was changed. Anything was done - and that wasn't unique to Red Bull - whether it was Williams in previous years, or McLaren.

"Take nothing away from Mercedes - they have done a super job. They have a good car, a fantastic engine, and they have two very good drivers. The problem is, the gap is so big that you end up with three-tier racing, and that is not healthy for F1."

Trouble is, Horner is asking for something to be taken away from Mercedes (or given to the others), in order to close up the field. Given that he is in charge of a four-time world champion team, desperate to get back to winning ways, and struggling to cope with the limitations of a Renault engine he now estimates to be "probably 100bhp down on Mercedes", it is easy to see why.

But, whether or not the motives spring purely from self-interest, no one could argue F1 wouldn't benefit from closer competition at the front. The prospect of a tighter fight between the two title protagonists already looks thin, thanks to Hamilton turning the tables on pole-position-trophy holder Rosberg in qualifying and converting that into a comfortable victory.

Sure, Rosberg stayed close - never more than 5s adrift and only 1.3s shy at the flag - but Hamilton had the advantage of track position and first call on strategy (less critical here, since both cars could comfortably make the finish on one pitstop), and simply controlled the gap. Hamilton did most of his job on Saturday, set himself up nicely with a smart getaway (and an even smarter restart following the early safety car period to recover Pastor Maldonado's crashed Lotus), and clinched the race by ensuring he extended a crucial advantage either side of his sole stop on lap 25 of 58.

There was no contest. And that's the point; F1 urgently needs a real contest in order to maintain genuine interest in the outcome of races. Interestingly, Rosberg spoke of hope that Ferrari might be able to offer a genuine challenge to Mercedes this season, when questioned playfully by Vettel in the post-race press conference.

Rosberg begs Vettel to give Mercedes some opposition © XPB

"I hope we can have a good fight [with Ferrari]," said Rosberg. "That would be awesome."

"Be honest," replied Vettel. "Do you really hope so? Seriously? You finished 30 seconds ahead of us and you hope it's going to be closer? So you hope you slow down - is that what you're saying?

Rosberg: "I hope that you can give us a challenge, because it's important for the sport and for the fans. And I do think about the show because I want to give people a great time at home watching on TV or at the track."

So it seems even those dominating F1 are wary of their current status - not just those who used to hold that position and now crave the chance to reclaim it.

"I would fear that interest will wane," said Horner, when asked what is at stake if the current competitive order goes unchecked. "I didn't see much of Mercedes on the television, because it is not interesting watching a procession.

"The producer was looking to pick out other battles in the race and there weren't that many cars on there! The highlight for me was seeing Arnie on the podium..."

Horner's quip about Arnold Schwarzenegger's post-race officiation highlights a genuine fear that F1 is suffering from the sort of predictability that so enraged fans during the latter stages of 2013, when Red Bull dominated. The irony of Horner calling on the FIA to equalise engine performance to alleviate that concern was not lost on him...

Of course it's all too easy to forget that F1 grids often become spread out after drastic technical changes are introduced, then close up again as everyone figures out the most effective way to go racing. This is a point McLaren racing director Eric Boullier was keen to stress, despite the fact his team currently has the biggest deficit to make up.

McLaren is coming from a long way back © XPB

"I think this engine technology still has a lot of potential to unlock, so it may take more than a couple of years [for McLaren] to catch up," he explained. "I don't think this is bad for the sport. Everyone obviously wants to have all the cars racing together, like we had back in 2012, but any technical change more than sporting change in the regulations is opening the door to gaps and loopholes.

"This is the price you pay if you change the regulations as drastically as they have been changed. You have to be patient. You have a good rivalry between both Mercedes drivers. The [other] teams will catch up."

But will they? After the race Hamilton said there was "no need" to eke out more of a gap to Rosberg, suggesting he could have won by an even bigger margin... That's a frightening prospect for the chasing pack, and if true suggests the likes of Williams have a lot of work to do, given it was having to race hard with Ferrari. However, the team's performance chief Rob Smedley reckoned its deficit to Mercedes was exaggerated by the fact the Albert Park street circuit doesn't play to the FW37's strengths.

"There's no one area, no one silver bullet," he said of Mercedes' advantage. "They haven't added a widget to their car to make it go 1.4s quicker. It's just levels of excellence in all areas - they are the benchmark.

"I don't think it's bad for the sport at all. Formula 1 is all about the levels of excellence. They have done a fantastic job and I'm not going to moan because they are quicker than us."

Mercedes quickly stretched away © XPB

So perhaps it's fair to say those who are "moaning" (namely Red Bull) should focus on improving their own game, without waiting for some kind of nebulous FIA handout to do their jobs for them. In fairness, Horner acknowledges the need for his team and Renault to respond after this battering. The combination managed to win three races and finish second in the championship last season, so in theory should at least be able to repeat that feat.

"It is important we regroup with Renault and try to offer our support where we can, because obviously they are in a bit of a mess at the moment," conceded Horner. "It is not the start that Renault can afford to have. We need to be doing a lot better. We need to be challenging Ferrari, we need to be challenging Williams, and I think if we can sort the issues out then we can do that."

But Horner admits his team won't be capable of challenging Mercedes for the championship this season. On the evidence of Melbourne, no one will. Even Mercedes privately admitted surprise at how far ahead it is again this year, though team chief Toto Wolff remains wary of the resurgent Ferrari squad.

"We have won the race with about half a minute to the Ferrari. [But] if you consider what kind of jump they've made from last year to this year it is pretty impressive," he said. "What we have seen in the GPS data is that their engine is really powerful and their car is really good.

"I think it's just a matter of time. Ferrari has it all: they have all the resources, the right people, the right drivers; it's a matter of time when they can reduce the gap.

"And half a minute is not the world, it's not as if we lapped the whole field. It is just the first race of 20 into the season. Let's see what happens in Malaysia."

Another Mercedes whitewash most probably. The question is: how many more of those can F1 afford? If Rosberg cannot start turning the tables on his team-mate, the answer is 'probably not many'...