Ten things we learned from Bahrain F1 test

Will Red Bull get its act together? Will Mercedes continue to dominate? Will all the new turbo cars just melt in the desert sun?

The second pre-season test in Bahrain promised to tell us a lot more about who is looking hot and who is certainly not with just three weeks to go until the first race of the season in Melbourne.

There are still four more days for the teams to get their acts together, but a clearer picture of F1 2014 is emerging. Here are the 10 things we learned in the Middle East this week.

THE SMART MONEY IS ON MERCEDES...

Were the Australian GP weekend to start today, anybody not tipping Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton to lead the way would be certifiable.

The Mercedes is comfortably the most accomplished-looking car on track, the engine sounds untroubled and, for want of a better word, 'normal' while Rosberg pulled off both another race run and a full-blown qualifying simulation on soft Pirelli rubber on the last day.

While testing times mean little at the moment, there is no doubt that Mercedes is furthest down the road with its programme. It understands the car, engine and driving demands of its machine far better than any other team at this stage.

The Australian GP is actually in three weeks, and there's no reason to imagine the story will be any different. That will still be early days and there will be a full-blown development war to fight during the season.

But make no mistake, Mercedes is on pole position right now.

...BUT IT ISN'T INVINCIBLE

The news of a Mercedes causing a red flag five minutes into day two in Bahrain came as a surprise. Aside from Lewis Hamilton's front wing failure at Jerez the F1 W05 made a bullet-proof start to 2014 pre-season testing.

While the sight of a few more stoppages for Mercedes over the course of this test could be interpreted as good news for its rivals, the message coming from the team was in fact ominous.

Yes, the car is breaking, but the implication was that the Brackley squad - with 315 laps over the last four days - is so far ahead with its test programme that it is discovering problems the other teams can only dream of ironing out before Melbourne.

RENAULT WON'T WIN IN MELBOURNE

The fastest Renault-engined car in Bahrain was almost five-and-a-half seconds off the pace. As a rule of thumb, machinery with French propulsion didn't go particularly far, or fast.

During the eight test days so far, Renault has lodged just 4019km, compared to the 10,082km logged by Mercedes. It's a big improvement from Jerez, but that's not saying much.

It's abundantly clear that there will be no instant fix for Renault. "We are now in a situation we could have accepted mid-Jerez," was Renault Sport F1 deputy managing director Rob White's verdict, which given the amount of work that has been piled through by Mercedes since then is not as encouraging as it might sound.

Renault is playing catch-up, of that there is no doubt. With only four days of testing remaining in Bahrain next week, right now simply getting a few cars to the finish would represent a win for Renault.

F1 2014 IS PLENTY FAST ENOUGH

The pace of new-look Formula 1 in Bahrain (particularly if you're using a Mercedes engine) has blown perceptions that this new generation of cars are "too slow" (Adrian Sutil) out of the proverbial water.

After four days of running in the Middle East, Nico Rosberg had lapped his smaller-engined 2014 Mercedes (with its significantly reduced wingspan) within a second of his pole position time using V8 power and exhaust-blown downforce at the 2013 Bahrain GP.

There was a feeling within the team that Rosberg could have matched the mark with a set of Pirelli's supersoft tyres fitted (he set his time on the soft compound) and a few small adjustments to his driving.

That means there is plenty more to come, and we've still got four more days of testing before the first race.

There is every chance that new-look F1 will very quickly end up faster than its predecessor, not slower.

BATTLE AGAINST WHEELSPIN

The extra torque generated by the new 1.6-litre turbo engines has been a big talking point among the drivers so far.

It's made the cars much more difficult to drive than before, demanding far greater discipline from the right foot to ensure you launch out of each corner pointing the right way, rather than heading straight for the scenery.

Kimi Raikkonen's crash on the final day in Bahrain typified this challenge. The 2007 world champion is undoubtedly one of the best drivers in the business, but when his Ferrari caught a kerb coming out of Turn 4 with five minutes left to run, the next thing the Iceman knew he was trudging back to the pits with a wheel hanging off the F14 T.

The drivers will have to be on their games at all times this year, to ensure they don't end up having to dip into the book of excuses too often.

IT'S NOT EASY TO WORK ON 2014 CARS

Many of the long delays to repair cars so far during the first two tests have not purely been a result of the new breed of F1 cars being so unreliable. Yes, the complicated engine packages are proving fragile, but another issue holding teams back at the moment is a lack of knowledge in how to carry out repairs quickly.

Ferrari engineering director Pat Fry estimates that jobs on the 2014 cars are currently taking twice as long to work through as they would have on last year's cars, simply because the teams do not know their way around their new toys just yet.

The length of time to carry out repairs is effectively exaggerating reliability problems at the moment. The belief from the teams is that once they learn how to fix things quickly again, it will reduce the impression of the 2014 cars being so easy to break.

TYRE MANAGEMENT STILL KEY

After an annus horribilis in 2013, Pirelli hopes to take a backseat in the (bad) publicity stakes this season, while the newfangled, energy-efficient, mind-melting new technical regulations transform Formula 1.

The Italian firm has played 'conservative' with its new specifications of tyres this year, opting to make all of them harder (on top of the steps taken mid-2013) in an effort to avoid any repeat of the sorts of shoulder-flailing, almost-red-flag-inducing disasters we saw in the first half of last season.

This is a natural response to the increased torque of the new engines, but there is a feeling among the drivers (and some within Pirelli) that it will be even more important to carefully manage your tyres through a race this year than before.

Rear wheelspin will be more prevalent than at any time since Pirelli came into F1, and that's nothing but bad news for tyre life.

WILLIAMS IS WELL-ADVANCED

Williams dedicated the third morning of the Bahrain test to pitstop practice. There are teams in the paddock who couldn't even in their wildest dreams imagine doing such a thing.

While the Williams has shown no signs of being the outright fastest car, it looks like a serious package capable of some very good results. Thanks to a combination of the Mercedes engine of choice, a revitalised technical team under Pat Symonds and a smooth run through testing, Williams is further up the road than most.

On Friday, Williams completed 43 live pitstops as well as around 20 practice starts before returning to a more orthodox programme in the afternoon. Add to that a race simulation run and being able to put new tester Felipe Nasr in the hot seat on the final day and it all adds up to an impressively well-run team.

GEARSHIFTS IN STRANGE PLACES

There's a lot to get used to about the new sound of F1 engines for 2014. But it's not just the engine note, or the fact that the cars now have eight gears to go through as they brake and accelerate for corners.

If you listen carefully you will notice that the drivers no longer change gear at the same revs in each gear as they accelerate. The unique way these new engines deliver their power produces a torque curve that cannot simply be maximised by getting close to the rev limit before shifting up.

As far as the engine manufacturers are concerned, it is about changing gear at the right time, rather than at maximum revs. And the right time for second gear will be different compared to seventh, meaning upshifts aren't as evenly spread as we are used to.

LATECOMER LOTUS NOT TO BE IGNORED

Only Marussia has completed fewer laps than Lotus during pre-season testing, so in no way could the Enstone team be said to be well-advanced in its programme. But there are a few encouraging signs.

Of all the Renault-powered teams, it ended the test happiest (or should that be least miserable) with technical director Nick Chester admitting that there was a chance of deposing Red Bull as the French marque's leading squad.

Being best of a bad bunch is nothing to write home about, but considering there has been nothing but bad news coming out of Enstone for months, its testament to the spirit of the team that some positives can be found in adversity.

This doesn't mean that Lotus will be at the sharp end in Australia, quite the opposite, but with a good run in the final Bahrain test for the twin-tusked E22 after what Chester described as an "encouraging" day yesterday, things might not be as bad as many forecast.