Form guide: Red Bull back in the game

Nobody doubted Red Bull and Renault would recover, but the big story on the first day of the 2014 Formula 1 season proper was the massive stride the team has taken.

A simple glance at the timesheets, on which Sebastian Vettel was fourth fastest, three quarters of a second slower than pacesetter Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, made that much clear. But even that shrouds the possibility that Red Bull's recovery is even more impressive than that.

To nobody's great surprise, Mercedes was the strongest team today both on single-lap and long-run pace. Hamilton's mark of 1m29.625s - which like all the fastest times was set on the soft-compound Pirellis, which at their peak are 2-2.3s faster than the mediums - put him half a second quicker than the best non-Mercedes, Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.

But things start to get interesting when you look at the long-run pace on the soft rubber, which will be the tyre of choice in the race.

ROSBERG'S STRONG RUN

Nico Rosberg's stint on soft tyres after the short run on which he set his fastest time is comfortably the most impressive.

Rosberg's long run was comfortably the most impressive © LAT

The run lasted 14 laps in total, with three - the outlap, inlap and one anomalous slow lap - disregarded, and Rosberg averaged an impressive 1m33.946s.

To create a usable data set, the averages for comparisons will be over 10 laps, with Rosberg's average improving to 1m33.882s.

Hamilton's equivalent run was slower, averaging 1m34.267s over a comparable set of 10 laps, but it is dangerous to read too much into that three-tenths deficit as it included a couple of laps in the 1m35s bracket before Hamilton returned to the 1m33s.

VETTEL SHOWS HIS HAND

Other than Mercedes, there was only one driver who dipped into the 1m33s during his long run.

That was Vettel, who averaged 1m34.869s over his soft-tyre long run. While that deficit of around a second is slightly bigger than his single-lap pace suggested, it hints that Red Bull may have what it takes to emerge as Mercedes' closest challenger.

WILLIAMS, McLAREN, FORCE INDIA IN THE MIX

If Red Bull is to come through in that fight, it will have its work cut out.

Bottas showed Williams's testing pace was real © XPB

While Williams kept a low profile on the timesheets, Valtteri Bottas showed that the team's winter testing form was no illusion.

His average pace was 1m34.840s, fractionally quicker than Vettel's but without any of the eye-catching peaks.

Jenson Button, meanwhile, averaged at 1m34.988s, putting McLaren firmly in the fight.

Sergio Perez showed that Force India's race form could be stronger than its single-lap pace, with a very similar average to Button's.

FERRARI QUESTION MARKS

While Alonso was third fastest on the timesheets, his long run was less convincing. Taking the first 10 usable laps of his run, he averaged 1m35.110s, with his fastest single lap in that stint in the mid-1m34s.

That suggests that Ferrari is thereabouts, but not necessarily strong enough.

THE BOTTOM LINE

All the usual caveats, and more, apply to any analysis on the long-run pace of Friday afternoon. It is based on one run and the assumption that fuel loads are identical. With 10kg adding around four tenths to a lap of Albert Park, small variations in fuel weight can make huge differences.

Likewise, with the normalised data placing everyone on 10-lap runs, it is a limited window.

Add to the mix the fact that it's impossible to judge whether everyone was running comparable strategies on fuel economy, and any conclusions are to be treated as vague at best.

But with all of those factors noted, this is how the top six teams line up:

1 Mercedes, 1m33.882s
2 Williams, 1m34.840s
3 Red Bull, 1m34.869s
4 Force India, 1m34.976s
5 McLaren, 1m34.988s
6 Ferrari, 1m35.110s

You can be confident that Mercedes being around one second up the road is accurate.

But with the next five teams covered by only 0.270s, the scrap for best of the rest is going to be mighty close.

Hamilton and Mercedes were ominously quick on both compounds © LAT

GARY ANDERSON'S OBSERVATIONS

We came to Australia expecting Mercedes to be strong and, other than a glitch for Lewis Hamilton early in the first session, which took five minutes to fix and was the result of a miscalibrated sensor, this is exactly what has happened.

The car looks very impressive and both drivers look confident behind the wheel.

The Mercedes went very well on both the soft and the medium Pirellis, which suggests there is no problem with tyre warm-up.

But the big surprise of the weekend has to be Red Bull. The team had a torrid time during pre-season testing and it was always clear that it had to get a workable fix together for this weekend with a view to a final package to build from in time for May's Spanish Grand Prix.

But hats off to Red Bull, which has defied all expectations. It has probably surprised even the team to have completed so many laps today.

On-track, the car looks very usable and there is certainly no lack of downforce.

The one question is reliability, but Vettel managed 41 laps in the second session.

That's 17 laps short of a grand prix distance, and obviously done over several stints rather than in one hit, but in many ways that's more demanding on the car.

When you're going in and out of the pits, the temperatures build and then are allowed to drop when you're in the garage, then build again. That's probably more demanding on a car that has potential problems than simply getting up to temperature and sitting there.

It does appear that Red Bull is battling the customer Mercedes-powered cars in the mix for best of the rest, but the big question is where Ferrari will be.

The team doesn't look too far away, as the laptimes show, but the ultimate single-lap pace isn't there on new tyres. That can be down to tyre balance or car balance.

Ferrari remains yet to convince, even if it's thereabouts on pace © XPB

As for race pace, it's thereabouts but not yet convincing.

The McLaren doesn't look as good as those early days of pre-season testing at Jerez suggested.

What is particularly interesting is the difference in style of the two drivers.

Rookie Kevin Magnussen has made a few mistakes and is letting the car move around a lot. By contrast, Button is much smoother, which you would expect from his style of driving.

You have to be very careful though, because it's easy to have a lazy car that just goes slower. Sometimes you need to stand on it to get a laptime, and Magnussen's style may be an advantage.

Williams looked incredibly strong in pre-season testing, but I never expected them to be at the top, and so it has proved in Australia.

Considering where the team was last year - when it ended up ninth in the championship - just to have two cars finishing in the top 10 would be a major step forward.

The two drivers are very capable and the car looks reasonable. But today I've seen more evidence that the rear tyres are hurting.

The car has a very strong front end, but in higher temperatures its overworking of the rears is starting to hurt. That could be a problem in the race.

Behind the top six teams, it seems that Toro Rosso has managed to get itself up and running. It's another Renault-engined car, so by working closely with Red Bull it's likely that quick progress can be made.

But the other two Renault teams, Lotus and Caterham, had absolutely awful days.

It's hard to know what to say about them. Of the four cars, only Romain Grosjean managed to set a timed lap, ending up second-slowest on Friday afternoon.

It's going to be a long, hard weekend for both those teams.

But time will reveal all. It will only be tomorrow afternoon in qualifying when we finally see everyone running on equal footing. Then we'll know where everyone stands on single-lap pace at least.