[andy_m]

I'm just trying to make some sense of what the testing so far means for the coming season. Obviously Ferrari look a lot better, and so do Lotus. Red Bull look iffy. McLaren have had an appalling pre-season so far BUT if their times have been with a faulty or even non-existent ERS then they have a potentially very quick car on their hands.

So, the way I see it is this: last year the only team to win races other than Merc were RBR, but these generally came when Merc had reliability issues. The only team that really came close to beating a healthy Merc were Williams. Testing suggests that Merc will be much more reliable this year than last, and that they have found some pace, and are comparable with the Lotus and Ferrari and Red Bull even on prime tyres relative to those teams.

In other words you still can't see past Merc one-two's for most of the season - if anything I think they'll be even more dominant. But the rest of the field will be very competetive. With reliability sorted I think the coming season will be a pretty dull drive to the titles for Hamilton (sorry, Mark) and Merc, but second place in the constructor's championship could conceivably go to Red Bull, Williams, Ferrari or even McLaren if they sort themselves out quickly.