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Felt it might be time to drag this thread out.
We've seen a huge re-shuffle of the form book from recent years over the first three races of this new era.
For the 1st time in years, Ferrari have so far been right up at the front on genuine pace & so far look like the clear best team, Red Bull close on pace to the scarlet cars but struggling with the car and new tyres more - and of course struggling with reliability as well but for all that, you'd have to say on pace at least, a clear 2nd so far.
So what of Mercedes? At times they've appeared to be maybe 3rd best on pace, at other times 5th or so & there has been a lot said by the team about needing to understand the problem before they can fix it. Sky commentary seems to believe that once the problems with the silver arrows are solved, then the team has a jet under them (& that MAY be right) but even if all the problems do get resolved, I'm not yet convinced that Mercedes will get to dominate in quite the same way as the recent past - which is the title of this (resurrected) thread.
No question that Mercedes is a good team, well-resourced with a lot of very talented & driven people but also there is the budget cap to consider and what impact that may have. For example, if they get to a point where it is clear that the car concept is simply not going to work and a new path has to be started, where does that leave them within the budget cap restrictions?
Personally I think that 23 is too many races in a season by far but Mercedes must be thankful for the long season just now as it gives them a chance to come back - do we think that they'll manage it, do we think that they'll dominate again?
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