Mercedes is not the problem in F1

Last year silver cars won 16 out of 19 races, Lewis Hamilton won the world championship and everyone spent more time talking about what's wrong with Formula 1 than what's right about it.

This year silver cars won 16 out of 19 races, Lewis Hamilton won... you get the idea. It wasn't a great season, and having spent more time following it from home than I have done in previous years, when I was more involved at the races, it's given me a very different perspective on grand prix racing.

There's nothing really wrong with what Mercedes is doing. It's there to win and has done the best job. Even with all the resources in the world and the might of a big manufacturer behind it, there is no easy way to succeed in F1 and those involved deserve a lot of credit.

After Mercedes won the constructors' championship, Hamilton was quick to pay tribute to Ross Brawn, and his role can't be overlooked. Decisions made one year in F1 can lead to success a long way down the line, so he deserves credit for his role in rebuilding a team that underachieved for several years before its current run of success.

Vettel and Ferrari troubled Mercedes, but the in-season gains were minimal © XPB

When you have one team clearly up front - and although Ferrari made a huge step forward in 2015, in reality it was only an occasional problem for Mercedes - you need the two drivers to make a fight of it.

Nico Rosberg just didn't do that this year. At least, not until it was too late. He's a very good driver, but he didn't play it smart for enough of the season.

The very best drivers aren't just quick, they are clever and they are ruthless. To prove that last point, you just need to take a look at the way Michael Schumacher did things - and there's nothing wrong with that.

But at Suzuka and Austin Rosberg put himself in a vulnerable position where Hamilton could force him wide at the start. You have to either play it smart and not try to hang it out around the outside, or if you do, be ruthless and be willing to have an accident.

Some fans didn't like it when I said Rosberg was at fault for this, but you have to take responsibility for your actions and he didn't do the best thing for his chances of winning.

His run of wins in the final three races was impressive, especially when you consider this also came with a sequence of six pole positions. But winning when there's nothing to play for is always easier, and you have to ask whether Lewis was 'on the beach' mentally once the world championship was won. Next year will tell us a lot.

Beyond that battle - which, in reality, wasn't much of a battle because Rosberg didn't wake up until the championship was lost - there wasn't too much to talk about on track.

Ferrari made a very good step forward from 2014 to '15, but once the season got going there wasn't much progress relative to Mercedes. Three wins was a decent return, and Sebastian Vettel has made himself very much at home at Maranello - much like Schumacher did almost two decades ago - but Ferrari didn't have enough performance to be a serious championship contender.

Next year that might be possible, but it gets very difficult to find gains once you're already at or near the front.

Beyond that we had to put up with endless engine complaints from Red Bull about Renault. This was counter-productive, and there were times early in the year when Toro Rosso just got on with it and showed up the A-team.

There's a lot to like about Toro Rosso. I enjoyed watching two young, motivated drivers in Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen this year - just as I always liked having drivers like that in my team.

You want driven, ambitious drivers. Even if they make a few mistakes, at least they aren't just turning up to cash a cheque.

Force India also did a great job, taking fifth in the championship after all sorts of financial troubles over the winter that led the team to miss most of the pre-season testing. But these were just a few good stories from the year.

The rest of the time we had to put up with confusing grid penalties, strange stewarding decisions, too much politics and all sorts of stupid ideas being proposed for the future of F1.

F1 should stop chasing quick-fixes to close the field up to Mercedes © LAT

I won't get into those ideas here as I've written about the obvious way to do things plenty of times this year, but until F1 really focuses on what the fans want to see it won't get anywhere.

People keep talking about how to tie Mercedes' hands and force them back into the rest of the field. But what I want to see is others allowed the chance to catch up.

Let those struggling for engine performance spend more development tokens to make improvements. You'll still have Mercedes being very strong, but others can make bigger gains to make the races more interesting.

In the top 10 in the drivers' championship we have two Mercedes drivers, two Ferrari drivers, two Williams drivers, two Red Bull drivers and then two Force India drivers - that tells you everything you need to know.

But what won't fix those problems, or the difficulty of overtaking without the use of the DRS, is the ideas that the Strategy Group are throwing around. We need more thinking outside of the box.

Half the time the solution is simply trying old ideas - like the attempt to bring back refuelling - that then get dropped five minutes later for very good reasons. What F1 needs is some simple, common-sense solutions that don't cost huge amounts of money for all of the teams.

By understanding what the fans want to see - which is nothing more than good, interesting and well-presented racing that they can understand - it will be much easier to make things better.

Racing is supposed to be about cars going around in circles, not the whole paddock. And that's what's most frustrating about what I've seen this season.

There's still some great drivers, great teams and sometimes some great racing. But without some dramatic aerodynamic changes, beyond what's being talked about for 2017, I can't see things being much different next year.