Is the Mercedes era really over?

On face value, it certainly looks as if things are getting a bit strained within Mercedes, and having two other teams biting at its heels is definitely exposing the team's weaknesses.

Over the first three years of its dominance, in reality all that was really required was make sure that Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg didn't knock seven shades out of each other too often. If Mercedes could manage that, which it did most of the time, then big points were always on offer and championships followed.

In 2017, things started to get a little tough. Valtteri Bottas replaced Rosberg and Ferrari started to become a big threat. If Mercedes tripped up, there was a Prancing Horse waiting to trample on it. So instead of just battling an internal pressure, there was an external rival.

From what we have seen so far of 2018, the same trend is continuing and Red Bull has joined Ferrari in being right in there to make sure Mercedes is being kept on its toes from the start of qualifying right through to the chequered flag.

It seemed like business as usual at the start of the season, with Lewis Hamilton on pole position for the Australian Grand Prix by 0.664 seconds. We talk about tenths being a lifetime in Formula 1, and when a team is more than half-a-second clear of its nearest rival it looked like the season was more or less done and dusted. Thankfully, that's not the case and a battle royale is just beginning.

In Australia, Hamilton went on to finish second behind Sebastian Vettel, but that wasn't his fault because he was on the correct piece of track when the virtual safety car was deployed according to the Mercedes calculations. The trouble was the calculations were wrong and Vettel had enough in hand to pit and stay ahead. That's the first big strategy mistake of the year.

Then, in Bahrain, the Ferraris locked out the front row with Bottas 0.298s down as the best Mercedes driver. Vettel went on to win from Bottas and Hamilton, with the latter serving a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change but salvaging a podium finish. But Bottas lost a better chance of winning because Mercedes was too slow to recognise Ferrari was one-stopping Vettel. The second mistake of the year.

In China, it was a similar picture, but with Bottas 0.582s down in third on the grid and Hamilton again the second-best of the Mercedes drivers. On pure lap time performance, Mercedes and especially Hamilton has been slipping back while Ferrari has been consistent. The fact its two drivers have been nip and tuck throughout shows that Ferrari has the tools on a Saturday to get performance from the car when it matters.

Hamilton's statement that "for some reason their car is working everywhere, it's very strange" on Ferrari was surprising and revealing. He should be looking at it the other way round. It's the form of Mercedes that is on a knife-edge, and that's never a comfortable place to be.

The 2017 Mercedes was a bit of a diva. The '18 car looks like it has the same characteristics, but relative to the competition it doesn't look quite as fast

In the race, yes the relative performance compared to Ferrari is better. But Mercedes is making more strategy mistakes, so you'd have to say that, after three races, Ferrari has the upper hand. Nobody expected that following pre-season testing.

During those winter sessions, Mercedes spent the majority of the time on the medium-compound tyres. This was the most stable tyre to rack the miles up on while testing car set-ups, but when push comes to shove on a Saturday afternoon in qualifying you need to get the softer tyre working for that one lap. So tyre warm-up is critical, and that is something it struggled with in both Bahrain and China.

To get a perfect full lap out of softer tyres is never easy. You need the front grip to be there at the start of the lap and the rears to last to the end, which is particularly important at a circuit such as Shanghai with its long, front-left limited first corner.

On a lot of occasions, the driver will need to make a small compromise to achieve this by protecting the rears on the out-lap, which means not being able to work the fronts enough for the start of the lap. This is what seems to hurt Mercedes more than Ferrari.

During pre-season, we commented on how the Mercedes, and especially Hamilton, could rotate the car around its front end. And while this looks great, any sliding that the rear is doing on corner entry is hurting the rear for corner exit when traction is vitally important. By the team's own admission, the 2017 Mercedes was a bit of a diva. Judging by these first three races, the '18 car looks like it has the same characteristics. But relative to the competition it doesn't look quite as fast.

The Mercedes seems to have a very small operating window, and that always makes it difficult to hit the sweet spot, especially on new tyres when car balance is everything in getting best from the rubber. After a few laps, when the tyres lose their initial bite, the problems diminish but they are still there and will be making the tyres degrade that little bit faster than if the inherent balance of the car was spot on.

I have had cars in the past that were pretty quick, but the drivers never really felt comfortable with them, and I've had cars that were a bit slower but the drivers felt they had confidence in. The latter is normally just a simple lack of grip, but the former is a bit more of a problem that usually comes down to an inherent airflow separation problem.

There is no way in the world that you can windtunnel or CFD test all the aerodynamic components that make up a current F1 car and hope that it will 100% correlate to what happens on the track. There is always something waiting just around the corner to bite you and I would say Mercedes is suffering from that problem.

While you can normally alter the set-up to camouflage small problems, they are still inherently there and will rear their ugly heads when least expected.

But that's all just engineering, and Mercedes has a very strong team of people that will be trawling through bucketloads of data to try to identify why these things are happening. The solutions can only be found after you identify the problem, and if you can't identify why it is happening and just keep on blindly looking for more downforce it's very easy to make the problem worse. Then you multiply your problems and frustration sets in.

There are two other problems that are probably more major. The first is the reaction to strategy situations. At the moment, Mercedes doesn't have as big a performance advantage as in previous seasons. So instead of seconds making the difference, you are talking tenths. As Toto Wolff keeps saying, it is easy with hindsight but the only reason these questions are asked so often is because things regularly go wrong.

In Melbourne, Mercedes thought it had a big enough window when the VSC came out to retake the lead from Vettel when he stopped but it didn't. It was a case of computer programme says 'OK' but reality says 'pissed off driver' when he sees Vettel exiting the pits into Turn 1 in front of him.

In Bahrain, the Mercedes drivers drove around in second and third protecting their tyres because they thought Vettel was going to stop again. He didn't and went on to win the race, albeit on tyres that were well past their sell-by date.

If the tables had been turned I don't think Bottas or Hamilton would have been able to do what Ricciardo achieved

Why didn't it get Bottas to close up to the back of Vettel earlier and put a little pressure on him so he would have had to use the tyres that little bit harder? If he had dived for the pits then Bottas could have done the same, leaving Hamilton in the lead trying to make a one-stop work. If it all went wrong, Mercedes would have ended up with the same result as it finished with but it would have opened the door to give it another shot at the win.

In China, I don't think it really did that much wrong, certainly not with Bottas. The Red Bulls were on the right piece of asphalt when the safety car came out, took the gamble and fitted soft tyres. It paid off and probably Mercedes could have done the same with Hamilton, but elected not to. If a computer programme says something, then it just does it.

Sometimes you also need someone on the pitwall sticking their finger out to check which way the wind is blowing. That's what Red Bull did by double stacking its cars at both the pitstops. Sometimes you need that gut feel to force open an opportunity.

As far as overtaking is concerned, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen take no prisoners. Ricciardo is exceptional on the brakes and I don't think if the tables had been turned that Bottas or Hamilton would have been able to do what Ricciardo achieved and Verstappen attempted to.

But for me, the biggest problem is in Hamilton's head. We have seen it on various occasions over his career, he goes off somewhere else and it takes a little time for him to get himself back up to speed.

As with any other driver, he will always be compared to his team-mate and at the moment Bottas has outqualified Hamilton and come away with two second place finishes from the last two races.

It's a long time since that has happened to Hamilton. He needs to get on top of it and fairly quickly or the downward spiral of the team could build momentum.

Hamilton wanted a bit of competition, but I'm not sure he wanted this much.