Trackside verdict: Mercedes rises early

The first four days of a pre-season test schedule dominated by the biggest rule changes in recent history is no time to bet the house on any team or driver. But as a percentage play, it would be hard to overlook Mercedes.

Watching trackside at Jerez, at a sodden Turns 1 and 2, the W05 comes to the fore. The car's margin over the rest of the field is incredibly fine but, in its benign attitude through treacherous conditions, its balance and relative lack of understeer, it does just about exist.

Of course, in truth four days is a derisory period over which to form a fully-informed picture of the 2014 formbook.

The most obvious caveat is that we are yet to see anything even remotely meaningful from Red Bull, which has something of a pedigree when it comes to racking up grand prix victories and Formula 1 world championships.

The reality is that the usual adage - testing times are at worst meaningless, at best vague - is even more pertinent than usual.

This year's sweeping rule changes have created a fascinating duality to the formative stages of the season, in that running quickly has been pushed onto the periphery by simply running at all.

Teams are unlikely to be running their new V6 turbos to maximum RPM, and the rumoured limits of each manufacturer vary. This will have a massive impact upon what we're seeing.

Red Bull is yet to show its form © LAT

On top of that, consider that engine mapping could vary wildly - again pronounced given the fact that torque comes not only from the turbo but from the ERS, capable of offering an additional 160bhp - and it would be a fool's errand to try to extrapolate anything meaningful or concrete from the prism of the first four days.

But that isn't to say that watching trackside doesn't have its merits, particularly when there's a chance to watch the cars in the dry, in the wet, and in the corridor of uncertainty in between.

The Mercedes, for example, looks a lazy car. Watching in the dry, at the final chicane, it lacks the bite of a Williams or a McLaren.

That laziness manifests itself in understeer into the chicane, and a less lively transition through it and onto the run down to the final hairpin.

But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. For starters, the team's relative strength last year was one-lap pace; its weakness race distances. A lazy car should theoretically put less strain on the rear tyres, which is why understeer is preferable to oversteer - albeit with the danger that, like last year's McLaren, the car becomes difficult to switch on.

In the wet, though, such laziness is manifested as stability. Nico Rosberg sometimes runs too deep and misses the Turn 1 apex, but on exit he rarely has to fight the rear.

The same is true at Turn 2, where the downhill slope exacerbates any underlying traits of oversteer. In tricky conditions, the Mercedes is massively assured and rarely breaks out of line. And when it does, it's easily controlled.

A counter-example is the Williams. At the chicane, and in the dry, it has an incredibly positive front end, with the car almost rotating about the front axle.

This doesn't appear to come at the expense of rear traction, and Felipe Massa isn't having to deal with oversteer as he flicks through the right-left-right sequence.

Transpose that into the wet, however, and the oversteer is more apparent, with Massa having to noticeably work to stop the rear end breaking through Turn 1.

That matters because, while the Brazilian is still quick - and not every race will be wet - it suggests that the Williams is working its rears more than the Merc, which could hurt it over long runs.

The Williams appears to work the rear tyres hard © XPB

McLaren, meanwhile, is somewhere in the middle in terms of handling.

It too looks very sharp at the front end in the dry, but doesn't lose the rear as much as the Williams seems to in the wet.

It also changes direction well in both conditions, and clearly gives confidence to the drivers if Kevin Magnussen is anything to go by.

The Dane was hustling the car through the first turns beautifully, with the McLaren nicely poised on the limit of its - and the circuit's - traction.

Last year's inherent understeer certainly seems to have disappeared, and the car is a very, very close match for the Mercedes.

Judging Ferrari's F14 T is a bit more difficult.

The car appears nimble enough, although in the dry it sometimes looks to be giving up rear traction to its rivals.

In the wet it flicks between looking solid and very rear-happy, a picture complicated by the fact that Fernando Alonso stayed on wets as other changed to intermediates.

The Spaniard certainly got loose through Turn 2 on a few occasions, the rear braking more severely than the McLaren or Williams, but oversteer is both his wont and a possible exploration of the car's behaviour.

One area where the Ferrari does seem to excel is under braking, with the change down through the gears audibly more seamless than any other car, which AUTOSPORT technical guru Gary Anderson suggests could derive from playing with a zero torque loss downshift.

Of the others, the Sauber is a surprising handful in the wet, with Adrian Sutil struggling with both understeer and oversteer through Turns 1 and 2.

It's therefore incredibly snappy, with Sutil drifting wider and having to get on the power later than, say, the Mercedes and McLaren drivers.

It has also struggled badly under braking, which Sutil said on Wednesday derived from a problem with the new braking-by-wire system.

The new Ferrari is hard to judge so far © XPB

"That system didn't work for us," he explained on Thursday. "That is why you probably saw me locking into every corner today. It's a system which should be a bit easier for the driver but more complicated for the engineer."

The Force India looked a more amenable beast, although it was only out for a handful of laps when we were trackside.

On that small sample set, it still looked sharper on turn-in than the Sauber. And, while it did suffer oversteer in the wet, it wasn't anything like as bad.

The Toro Rosso likewise headed out for just a handful of laps, but looked quite nimble and poised.

Rookie Daniil Kvyat had bags of confidence and was happy whenever the car broke traction - underlined by his ability to make it do so lap after lap - but in truth it won't be until the next test in Bahrain that we get a proper picture of its inherent qualities.

The same is true for Red Bull, Marussia and to an extent Caterham, which - perhaps unsurprisingly - looked difficult during the wet final morning.

In particular Kamui Kobayashi was struggling to find the apex of Turn 1, but where running wide worked for the Mercedes, he then had to wrestle the car to get the rear in line for the short run down to Turn 2.

Going trackside also yielded a few other general observations. The longer gearing of this year's engines, added to the additional torque available, means watching cars at hairpins initially feels alien as the expected final downshift never comes.

There's also an audible difference in acceleration, which doesn't always relate to speed.

Ferrari, for example, seemed to be using more torque from the ERS to exit Turn 1, which meant that it accelerated normally, but with a much flatter engine note than the Mercedes.

The Merc looked most composed throughout the four days, which, coupled with an emphatic lap count, is pretty ominous for the rest, even though McLaren in particular looks in the game.

But as is underlined every year, initial appearances can be deceiving, and this year there are even more parameters to add to the usual caveats of running programmes, fuel loads, tyres, temperatures and track conditions.

There is the huge unknown of Red Bull and its RB10. Fragile it may be for now, but quick? Don't bet against it.

Mercedes might have had the best of Jerez, but F1 2014 still has plenty of questions to answer.