Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (right) and team mate Nico Rosberg alongside a vintage Mercedes-Benz race car in Fellbach, Germany. (Photo: AFP )
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (right) and team mate Nico Rosberg alongside a vintage Mercedes-Benz race car in Fellbach, Germany. (Photo: AFP )
More races, more teams, a trio of rookies and more complicated new rules, Formula One roars back to life with a fresh coat of paint in Melbourne next weekend, but facing many familiar problems and questions.
First among them is the unknown level of motivation that defending three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton will take into the 2016 season as he seeks a hat-trick of successive title triumphs with the all-conquering Mercedes team.
Hamilton, champion in 2008, 2014 and 2015, appeared to lose his ‘mojo’ at the end of last year once he had clinched the title with three races to go and that allowed his teammate Nico Rosberg to seize the momentum going into the European winter.
Pre-season testing in Spain has given few clues on how the Briton and the German will size up when they race in earnest for the first time at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 20 and, beyond that, it is virtually impossible what may lie ahead.
While Mercedes delivered impressive reliability and endurance, as well as solid speed and performance, at the two weeks of testing in Spain, Ferrari were faster with both four-time champion Sebastian Vettel and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen topping the times.
That suggests much of the same this year with Ferrari closing the gap and Vettel, in his second season with the scarlet scuderia, mounting a more serious challenge to the pace-setting Mercedes outfit.
Behind them, the unchanged Williams and Red Bull teams are likely leaders of the chasing pack while the field will welcome the arrival of the new Haas team, the first American outfit to race in F1 in three decades.
