Secret mechanic: Red alert time for F1 teams?

So after months of anticipation and waiting, 10 of the 11 Formula 1 teams finally laid their cards out on the table at Jerez.

The build-up to that first test of the year is a frantic time inside most teams. It's all about just getting the car into one piece and getting it to the circuit.

It's hard work for all involved and the fact that Lotus opted out, Marussia turned up late and some teams didn't even leave the garage on day one, shows how difficult it can be.

F1 mechanics fully expect to be working into the small hours ahead of a new car's first outing and by the time it hits the track on its first day they've been up close and personal with it for weeks.

They know what it looks like, long before it's unveiled to the world's media and fans. They know how the individual components compare to the previous year. They know if it's easy to work on, easy to change parts, to get the floors on and off, or to remove the gearbox.

They know all of these things, because they've already done them all a number of times during the build process. What they don't know, the one thing they really want to know, is what will happen when it leaves the garage for that very first time.

Everyone wants a quick car and everyone wants a reliable car: two things that no one can tell just from looking at it or working on it, not even the experts. Those things become apparent at different stages and not always at the same times for each team.

I've been involved in some first tests that have left me truly dreading the season ahead, yet others that have had me trying to conceal a slightly smug grin from my not-so-fortunate pitlane associates.

Some years ago now, we arrived at a circuit in Spain in mid-January to give our new challenger its first taste of a racetrack. I remember being quite excited about the prospect, as the car had what appeared to be some really quite nice features on board. It wasn't necessarily revolutionary, but if all of its little design tweaks worked, it was the sort of thing we could see others scrambling to copy over the coming months.

To cut a very long story short, it didn't quite work out as we all hoped. The neat, tightly packaged rear-end and unique exhaust configuration might have looked smart, but on its very first run, caught fire. And continued to catch fire on every run after that.

The new car's first test can either lift a team or cause morale to drop © LAT

It didn't respond well to set-up changes and making simple adjustments took much of a morning session to complete. Not only is that clearly not good for performance, it's definitely not good for mechanics.

We were having to repair and replace carbon floors, bodywork, wiring, heat shielding and all manner of components as they were continually cremated by the car's exhausts. These are not easy or quick tasks and certainly not something we should continue having to do as the races drew nearer, but equally not simple to fix.

Our chief designer was so convinced by the fundamentals of his design, he was reluctant to abort the philosophy and so, to put it bluntly, we knew from that moment we were in for a difficult season.

F1 design briefs are all about performance and efficiency, not so much about making life easy for the crew. If your car constantly needs taking apart at the track it makes for a tough old week for the mechanics.

Depending on the problems, you can come away from that first test with a real sinking feeling if the car's inherently difficult and fragile. By the time the teams arrived at Jerez, many staff would have already been fairly exhausted from the preceding weeks, so a kick in the teeth like discovering you've built a 'dog' of a car really is the last thing you need at the end of January.

Conversely, if your car's looking promising at this stage, it's a huge lift for morale and the pain of the long days and late nights is soon forgotten. With the complete uncertainty over where each of the three engine manufacturers would sit in the pecking order coming into 2014, the teams using Mercedes power will have left Spain feeling somewhat buoyed.

It's difficult not to allow the odd premature thought of championship successes or points bonuses to creep in, despite the infancy of the season, when things start off well.

I always found it imperative to play down our chances back at home, if for no other reason than to prevent my wife from spending the fictional windfall she would convince herself was on the way having seen timesheets from day one.

New innovations can be hit and miss © XPB

The fact that the Renaults struggled so much at Jerez may have given some hope to the teams who've been plagued by Red Bull's dominance for so long, but in reality it won't be seen as the end of the world by the world champion squad itself.

Of course everyone wants to make the most of the 12 track days ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, but the team will be adjusting its schedules and making the necessary changes before heading to Bahrain. It knows what the problems are and Renault will simply have to do whatever it takes to arrive in the Middle East having overcome them.

Having worked with large engine manufacturers in the past, I promise you they have large resources and can't afford to fail. Don't forget, their participation in this sport is predominantly a big marketing exercise, this year more than ever, and with only three taking part, no one wants to be third best.

Many of the cars that roll out in Bahrain may well look quite different to those we saw last week too, as the pace of development could well be faster than ever. Teams will have had to get their cars together in whatever shape they could for that first test, so parts will now be coming through all the time to try to improve, imitate and innovate over the coming weeks.

There's no time to catch up and recuperate, it's all hands on deck from here on in and with each big technical update generally comes another late night for the guys in the garages.

Drawing offices are churning out new ideas every day, some make it onto cars, many won't ever get that far, but for the crew desperately trying to get their heads and spanners around the new machine, it's a constantly changing beast.

There may only be eight days of testing left, but a lot can change in that short time in F1. I remember arriving at race one in Australia once with no less than the 13th iteration of our front wing assembly on the car!