Pat Symonds' F1 2019 half-term report

It's traditional at this time of year to take stock and comment on the relative performance of the teams. Quite often, particularly over the past few seasons, we've been looking at a dominant team, but not since the reversion to just 10 outfits have we seen the zenith and the nadir of performance so firmly anchored race after race.

We have got used, since 2014, to seeing Mercedes dominate, but fans of unpredictable outcomes have always held out hope that a weakness in the team's impressively solid armour might show.

Indeed, in 2014 Red Bull and even Williams challenged Mercedes from time to time, and since then Ferrari has mounted a challenge and Red Bull stolen some wins.

But the fact is, prior to 2019, Mercedes had won 74% of the races in the hybrid era and scored 66% of the available points.

Interestingly we can compare this with Manchester City's record in football's Premier League where, over the past five seasons, it has won 68% of its matches and obtained 74% of the available points. The difference, apart from the obvious variances in the scoring systems (you can't come third in a football match), is that while Mercedes has been rewarded with every championship over that period, Manchester City has only won two of the past five domestic titles.

Mercedes had its weaknesses in previous years. The difficulty of always getting the sensitive Pirelli tyres into the optimum operating temperature window pre-dated the hybrid era and continued into the first half-decade of new turbo power. This manifested itself particularly at the slower circuits.

Mercedes being Mercedes we could not expect any weakness to last long. The foremost exponent of marginal gains and incremental performance was not about to allow such a major deficiency to carry on indefinitely, and I have no doubt that huge resource was ploughed into the solution.

Whatever the team found, it appears to have been successful and while the gap to its rivals might have changed in magnitude from circuit to circuit, it has always been positive. Even at Barcelona, where Ferrari appeared to outperform Mercedes in pre-season testing, Mercedes came back strongly with a magic lap from Valtteri Bottas over 1% faster than the team's perceived nemesis.

But what of the challengers? Ferrari's pre-season form flattered to deceive. Its straightline speed was widely put down to an improved power unit, which perhaps even exceeded the performance of the long-dominant Mercedes engine.

In reality, acceleration data showed the two engines to be very evenly matched and the prodigious terminal speed of the Ferrari had more to do with lower drag than higher power.

The 5km/h difference seen in typical terminal speeds would have required a further 50bhp on a car with equal drag, but if we assume the power units to be equal it could also be achieved with around five points less drag.

Now, if we assume the two cars have equal aerodynamic efficiency then the five points of lower drag might equate to around 18 points less downforce, which in turn would show as a lap time deficit of around five or six tenths which, Bahrain excepted, is about what we are seeing.

How will Ferrari recover? Well, in order to move on one first needs to understand the current problems. Is it just a question of low downforce? Personally, I doubt it. Ferrari's strong performance in Bahrain was at a circuit that is much less sensitive to a lack of tyre grip than it is to power or aerodynamics, and Ferrari seems to be struggling to generate sufficient tyre temperature. I don't think this is just down to the reduced tread gauge of the 2019 Pirellis, but that is probably the subject of a column in itself.

Of the others, I'm impressed with the gains made by Honda since last season. Red Bull took a brave if almost inevitable decision to make the switch from Renault over the winter and one has to say that in terms of performance and reliability it has paid off.

The team finds itself in third place in the constructors' championship, but the wins in Austria and Germany and the harsh acknowledgement that three quarters of the team's points have come from its lead driver shows that it is more competitive than its points tally suggests.

McLaren is impressive, not just in the way the team has turned itself round but also in the intelligence shown in making two very good signings for the technical team in James Key and Andreas Seidl. That said, one must acknowledge the role returnee Pat Fry has made over last winter. McLaren has learned once again what makes a car competitive. The team is fortunate to have patient investors, but at least their faith is paying off.

Renault, apart from a good performance in Canada, has not shown the form expected of that team after last year. It is well into a rebuild programme and I was very impressed with the factory when I visited it recently, but Renault badly needs a strong second half to the season.

Haas appears to be facing the realities of the relentless competition for those midfield places and is struggling more than most to understand the intricacies of the tyres, while Racing Point, Alfa Romeo and Toro Rosso must all be hoping that mid-season developments give them the boost needed to rise above each other. Sixth to ninth is going to be close, and it is possible that the top of the bunch will be decided by one fortunate result.