Ten things we learned from Jerez F1 test

What will the cars sound and look like? Will the engine manufacturers get it right? Which team boss is already looking concerned?

These were just some of the questions AUTOSPORT travelled to Spain with, and we got a lot of answers.

As ever with pre-season testing, there is still an awful lot to discover, but here are the main things we learned from the first F1 test of 2014.

RED BULL FACES ITS BIGGEST CHALLENGE
Jonathan Noble

There had been a lot of expectation before the Jerez test that one of the big teams would get it wrong, but few would have put any money on that being Red Bull.

So appalling was Red Bull's week in Spain that it ended the four-day test with both the slowest laptime and having completed the fewest laps out of anyone.

It all started to go wrong before the RB10 even ran, when an incorrectly mounted part during car assembly needed to be remounted, hindering its early running.

Alarm bells ringing for Red Bull

Then, when it did get going, Red Bull fell foul of Renault's power unit woes and some pretty substantial overheating issues.

While potential main title rivals Mercedes and Ferrari reeled out the laps, Red Bull managed just 21 - and now faces an intense two weeks of work to get a repackaged car ready for Bahrain. The pressure is on.

RENAULT HAS BIG ISSUES TO SOLVE
Jonathan Noble

There had been whispers before the first test that Renault was up against it with reliability and that was proved with its troubled week at Jerez.

The French car manufacturer had already stated in the days before the test that it was adopting a conservative approach because of its concerns.

Renault: no full fix before Bahrain

Those efforts failed to pay off as a spate of problems hampered Renault's week. There was not one area of its power unit that could be singled out as the main problem, it was more the way that the whole control systems for the various parts came together.

Temporary solutions were put in place to try to allow its teams to get some mileage under their belts this week, but it is clear Renault has a lot of work to do before Bahrain.

MAGNUSSEN IS GOING TO BE GOOD
Sam Tremayne

We have to admit Magnussen's quality isn't something we just stumbled upon at Jerez. A long-term McLaren junior, Magnussen has won races at every level he has competed in, and last year was a tour de force in Formula Renault 3.5, combining his undoubted speed with incredible consistency to clinch the championship.

But even so, it was impossible not to get excited about his official debut as a McLaren F1 driver.

For one thing, there was the headline time: a 1m23.276s that put him top of the pile, and all after just one afternoon in the car.

It wasn't a glory run either, with the Dane setting the benchmark despite not being "balls to the wall", and demonstrating a remarkable lack of deviation across his longer runs.

Test round-up: Magnussen fastest

Then there was a wet Friday morning, where he was visibly hustling the MP4-29, forcing it into Turn 1, shrugging off the oversteer, a swashbuckling demonstration of car control and confidence.

Allied to that was his demeanour and the way he took stepping up into F1 - at a time of such massive change - so calmly in his stride.

Looking at Magnussen on the timesheets, Nico Rosberg remarked how tough being a rookie in 2014 will be. The Dane's take? "It's part of the job. You get on with it."

MERCEDES LEADS THE WAY
Edd Straw

Ask any of the three engine manufacturers what they needed out of Jerez, and the answer was universal: mileage.

It's the only metric that really mattered and by managing almost double the laps of nearest rival Ferrari, there's no doubt which of F1's three engine manufacturers has the most data to pore over in the 18 days between now and the next test in Bahrain on February 19.

This does not mean that the Mercedes is the best engine, merely that four days into this new era of engines it is able to be the furthest along its learning curve.

Mercedes wins the phony war

As for the Silver Arrows team itself, things are looking extremely encouraging. The car was quick, for what little that is worth in testing, and it was hugely impressive to see Rosberg completing a race simulation on Friday.

There will be a lot of water under the bridge before the season starts in Melbourne, but things are looking good for the silver corner so far.

THE CARS SOUND GOOD
Kevin Turner

The new 1.6-litre turbos are not as loud as the outgoing V8s, but it's not all bad news. In fact, although the old engines created drama with the volume of their scream, it's actually easier to enjoy the new sound without having to reach for the earplugs.

The "music", as Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost likes to call it, is good. These are still thoroughbred racing engines and sound like it. The popping under braking, largely caused by the energy harvesting systems, isn't a highlight, but once the revs rise the meaty engine noise takes over.

Rosberg says it reminds him of the turbos of the 1980s and it's hard to disagree with that. And people don't tend to moan about F1 lacking something in that particular era.

There are also differences between the powerplants. Even the Mercedes W05 sounds deeper and gruffer compared to the other cars running the Three Point Star's engine.

The powerplants have provided another benefit too. The cars are exciting to watch coming out of the corners thanks to all the torque. The drivers like it and, at this stage of the year, it's possible to stand trackside and see the cars on good degrees of opposite lock - angles that were rare with the V8s unless they were crashing.

UGLY CARS WON'T BE THE MAIN TALKING POINT...
Kevin Turner

OK, so these cars won't make it on to many people's 'best looking F1 cars' list. They are not Maserati 250Fs, Lotus 79s or Jordan 191s; the strange nose regulations helped see to that.

And yet they generally look a good deal better than many expected. Some of the noses - and we don't mean the Caterham or Toro Rosso - are neat, certainly more attractive than the stepped efforts we had to look at last year.

Many of the liveries work well too - such as the silver Mercedes with flashes of black and green, and Force India's design is an improvement over 2013.

The narrower front wings also give the cars a more balanced look and the bodywork on most is nice and smooth, bereft of the unattractive appendages that grew during the 2000s.

For once, there are some obvious visual differences between the cars. Paint them all white and you would still be able to pick out the McLaren MP4-29.

...BUT NOSE DESIGN WILL BE
Gary Anderson

We're going to hear a lot more about these controversial nose designs before this storm blows over after the FIA decided to take a keen interest in their safety.

The idea of lowering the nose was to stop cars flying over the top of each other, as happened when Mark Webber rear-ended Heikki Kovalainen in Valencia in 2010.

When Adrian Sutil crashed on Thursday, we saw the nose of the Sauber wiped out when he hit the barrier, which might have alerted the FIA to potential safety concerns.

All the designs comply with the letter of the law, but seem at odds with the objective of the regulations, which was to lower the front crash structure.

If there is a safety issue, it's very possible we could see a rules clarification and already there are teams, particularly those who have a more conventional interpretation of the rules, lobbying for change.

MCLAREN IS BACK
Gary Anderson

The MP4-29 looks very good out on track. Watching Magnussen, during the last two days, he was able to push the car to the limit. That showed he has confidence in the car, although perhaps he got a little over-confident when he had a couple of offs late on Friday. It's essential for the driver to feel they have the car underneath them.

This is a major recovery from McLaren's poor 2013 season. You learn more in a bad year than you do in a good one and McLaren appears to have done its homework.

With Red Bull tripping up, it's down to McLaren to capitalise on its early advantage because it has to be getting back in among the frontrunners.

Take the rear suspension blocker design. It's a design you really have to commit to early on as it does compromise the rear suspension a little. So it will not be easy for people to latch onto it.

People will have a few questions about legality, but that's the good thing about new regs; there are loopholes.

The whole car is very well-detailed. The only question is whether this means McLaren has less room to develop.

WILLIAMS IS LOOKING GOOD
Sam Tremayne

Two years ago, Williams broke its eight-year win drought with a shock victory at Barcelona. In 2013 that seemed a distant memory, the team scoring an abject five points across the 19 races.

False dawns are therefore something of a familiar territory for the Grove-based squad, but there are reasons to be confident that its showing at Jerez established a genuinely promising platform for 2014.

It wasn't just that Felipe Massa ended the fourth day of testing on top, it was the way the car behaved on track. A very positive front end meant it looked nimble and agile, but crucially not at the expense of the rear.

That was less true in the wet, which perhaps suggests it will tend towards oversteer when grip diminishes, but that could change anyway when the inevitable upgrades appear before Australia. When trouble-free running was the primary order of the week, Williams came up trumps.

"I'm pleased with what I have seen in the team this week," Massa reflected. "That we didn't have any issues with the car is a step forward."

FERRARI IS BETTER THAN EXPECTED
Kevin Turner

It was always likely one of the engine manufacturers was going to run into trouble with the complicated new systems.

Ferrari was the most conservative when it came to lobbying for various powerplant rules over the winter so there was an assumption it was already on the back foot, that 2014 would be Mercedes versus Renault.

The Jerez running indicates otherwise. Mercedes has grabbed the headlines, accounting for 60 per cent of the total number of laps completed, but Ferrari has been quietly impressive too.

If you take the number of laps completed per car, Ferrari has 148 against the 219 of Mercedes (and 50 of Renault). Then throw in the fact that Marussia didn't get its Ferrari-powered MR03 onto the track until day three and the tally looks good.

It's hard to argue Mercedes is not currently ahead in the engine war, but Ferrari is in the ballpark.