The 271 seconds that should worry Mercedes' rivals

Formula 1 teams know that in a championship where they face the media spotlight so much, it's always better to under-promise and over-deliver. Being too cocky only ever comes back to haunt you.

British American Racing never really made up for designer Adrian Reynard's bold aim to win its first race. Ron Dennis was never allowed to forget his conviction that he would have no problems taming Juan Pablo Montoya like a "stallion".

So when Mercedes, a team that has in recent years has mastered the art of sending the right message, came out last week with a quite bullish short video from James Allison that its new car would "blow away" its old one in a straight fight, it made you sit up and take notice.

Mercedes is not a team with a tendency to unnecessarily 'big things up', nor has it ever felt the need to chase headlines to grab a little bit of extra coverage.

In fact, it is a team that deserves a huge pat on the back for having been, despite its massive success, one of the most open, friendly and accessible to the media - and, by extension, the fans.

That is in contrast to Ferrari's baffling policy of shutting out the media (and therefore F1's followers) from as much as it can possibly get away with. Even the lessons of last year, when such a stance left it permanently on the defensive and facing unnecessary external pressure, do not seem to have been heeded.

Last week's Allison video was an eye-opener in many senses. On one level it was so refreshing to have a team offer so much information about the elements of its new F1 car and what it had done to improve things.

The walk through of the work on the sidepods, which Allison claimed was worth 0.25 seconds per lap, was fascinating to observe - especially at a time when some other teams were satisfied to release just heavily photoshopped images of cars for their official launches.

Of course, it would be naive to think that Allison revealed hidden secrets about the Mercedes - everything he pointed out would have been very obvious to the trained eyes of rival teams - but what he provided was still the kind of open-door access for fans that F1 really needs to embrace more.

For a team that has never over-promised anything during its championship-winning spell, such statements seem out of character - but you sense they come from a genuine belief

More than the insight, though, it was the confidence-oozing assessment of the progress that Brackley had made over the winter that was perhaps the most revealing.

There was no talk about "let's wait to see how testing goes" or "we won't know until Melbourne". For the 271 seconds the video lasted, Allison was as flat out as you could be about the jump Mercedes had made.

"Last year's car was the quickest one out there. It won more races than any other and it was of course the championship winner," he declared. "But last year's car would be utterly hopeless, it would be blown away by this one because of all that work by all those people over an entire year making modifications at every level. All of them are small but all of them are accumulating to a huge end result and a car that is just much, much faster."

For a team that has throughout its championship-winning spell never over-promised anything, such statements seemed a little out of character - yet they were not words of arrogant confidence. Instead you sensed they came from a genuine belief in what the data at the factory was telling the team.

As last week's weather improved for the second Barcelona test after the snow and cold travails of week one, we finally got to see a glimpse of what the big teams were capable of.

While it was Ferrari that ended testing as the winter world champion, thanks to Sebastian Vettel's unofficial record lap of Barcelona on the penultimate day, a closer look at the analysis and long-run performance indicated that Mercedes' claims of a big leap forward were well justified.

The team never bothered running with the hypersoft tyres and its long run form looked to be the best. Talk (from Red Bull) of Mercedes overheating its rears appeared to perhaps be more stirring the pot than based on reality, with the Silver Arrows not appearing to suffer any more than others.

Red Bull definitely appeared to have made a step forward and has an upgrade coming for Melbourne, while Ferrari looks as though it has not made the jump it would have hoped for.

Taking into account the 1.4s lap time deltas suggested by Pirelli between the hypersoft and supersoft, Vettel's penultimate day time of 1m17.182s was not actually the stand out. Kevin Magnussen managed a 1m18.360s on supersofts - which meant that he could have done a theoretical best of 1m16.960s.

Of course, we don't know different fuel loads, and track/wind conditions can change things too, but the Haas time will have raised some eyebrows at Ferrari - and perhaps lifted confidence at Mercedes too that its closest rival from 2017 may not have made the step it wanted with a change of philosophy.

If Mercedes not only maintains but extends its advantage at the front of F1 this year it will be an incredible achievement.

What has perhaps been most impressive about the Mercedes steamroller is that it has managed to keep up its motivation and the ever more difficult push to improve despite its ongoing success.

The impression from Mercedes and Hamilton is that rather than having buckled under the pressure of a tough onslaught from the opposition, it has revelled in facing that threat

There is no sense that complacency has set into the organisation at all. Indeed, team boss Toto Wolff has suggested several times that a personal paranoia about things going wrong or a worst case scenario playing out in front of him has perhaps been a core strength in his role.

The same desire to do better is equally true of the drivers. Lewis Hamilton may have had his ups and downs with Mercedes over the years, but at no point has he let really good opportunities slip through his fingers. And there is no evidence of him being tired or bored by another push for the title.

Asked at Barcelona last week if the mark of a great was never being satisfied with your lot, Hamilton said: "I don't know if I can say that that's the mark of a great, because that's really for you to decide and down to personal opinion.

"When I look at [Roger] Federer and when I look at these greats who continuously break barriers within their own performance, and when you look at Kobe Bryant who played for so many years and just kept going, and Federer, he's back at the top...

"To have that drive, you've got success, you've got wealth but you've still got drive, maybe that is the mark of a great or part of the mark of a great.

"It's inspiring to see these iconic individuals continue to shine. Also they're inspiring people - I've got young cousins who look up to [Lionel] Messi for example. I was playing tennis with my dad this morning and trying to be Federer! I sucked, but it doesn't mean I can't try and improve and get somewhere I feel is good."

The impression from both Mercedes and Hamilton is that rather than having buckled under the pressure of a tough onslaught from the opposition, it has revelled amid that threat. It's helped keep them sharp and pushed them to greater highs.

"The exciting thing is being on the limit," Hamilton told me in an interview late last year. "It's getting out there and discovering the limit faster than everyone else and then when you get to that limit, playing with the limit. Then balancing on the edge. Controlling it. I love that."

Being on the limit, and going flat out, is exactly what Mercedes does on track and off it: and even in its own in-house videos. Rivals, you've been warned.