2014 season review: Mercedes

The 2013 season was a brief snapshot of what 2014 was going to bring for the Mercedes team: greater success, with the team having exceeded their expectations of last season, with them taking three race wins and nine podiums, especially with the expectations of Lewis Hamilton's first season with the team.

All the recruitment and poaching of technical bosses and upheaval in management was always in preparation for the 2014 season which the new V6 turbo-charged hybrid engines making a introduction to the sport, which Mercedes felt would see themselves as worthy championship contenders.

You could argue that the final step towards the completion of the Silver Arrows project was former Team Principal Ross Brawn leaving the team and handing the reins over to Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe, jointly running the team as executive director (business) and executive director (technical) respectively in a management reform.

With the early rumours of the Mercedes' power unit being ahead of their rivals Renault and Ferrari concreted them as being pre-2014 favourites and began to bear some truth in pre-season testing with their power unit proving its worth both on reliability and performance terms. Continuity with their driver line up was always on their side with the Mercedes team being the only team on the grid to retain both drives for the new season, while other teams have made one or wholesale changes to their driver line ups such as their main rivals Red Bull and Ferrari

Mercedes' early advantage was growingly predictable by pundits and fans, but the magnitude of their actual advantage was one very few could guess, particularly with wet weather in qualifying at the season-opener in Australia and in Malaysia masking their one-lap advantage over the rest of the field.

But the revealing and nadir of their advantage finally showed itself in Bahrain, with Mercedes locking out the front-row and Rosberg's pole lap being almost a second faster than the closest non-Mercedes driver in Daniel Ricciardo. The race in Bahrain saw both Rosberg and Hamilton in a league of their own and battling for the win both intensely on-track and on different strategies until a safety car wiped away their substantial advantage.

But despite a safety car, both of the Mercedes drivers restored a sizeable advantage afterwards with the drivers lapping over two seconds a lap faster than the rest of the field despite Rosberg and eventual race winner Hamilton duelling once again on-track and the latter on the slower tyre.

Such was their performance advantage on the circuit, whatever challenge the powers-that-be on the pit wall had on managing their two drivers was eased by the freedom to let them race and not impose team orders as well as the distribution of data from either driver to the other; but were aware that circumstances could change if their drivers found themselves in different positions, something that would become apparent later on in the season.

In the first two races of the season, Mercedes racked up 68 points out of a possible 86, including a 1-2 finish in the latter race and would've been a 1-2 finish in Australia as well had pole-sitter Hamilton not retired from an engine problem and their twenty- five second race-winning gap would probably have been even bigger. Their conquering of Bahrain was followed by two 1-2 finishes in China and Spain, with Hamilton converting pole to race wins on both occasions and taking the initiative in the championship ahead of Rosberg.

The Monaco GP saw the Mercedes team enter new territory as it transpired that Rosberg and Hamilton illegally used unique engine settings to aid their race efforts in Bahrain and Spain respectively. This then proved to be the foundation of the tension that grew when Rosberg took to the escape road on his final Q3 lap when topping the times and brought the yellow flags out, deterring drivers including team-mate Hamilton from putting in a quicker lap and therefore secured pole.

As a result of this, Rosberg went on to convert his Pole Position on race day and take the championship lead back while Hamilton was left frustrated on the team radio after the team over-ruled his suggestion of pitting to get ahead of Rosberg with the risk of a safety car period looming after Adrian Sutil crashed out, alongside his own suspicions of Rosberg's off-track excursion in qualifying.

We then saw Hamilton after the race ended being subdued on the podium and friction growing between him and Rosberg as he declared post-race that they were no longer “friends” but “just colleagues” while Rosberg himself took a mild-mannered approach and insisted that they'll always be friends. Suddenly, cracks began to form in the team and shadows of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost's tumultuous relationship at McLaren were about to make an appearance, with non-executive chairman Niki Lauda and Wolff facing the challenging adversity of restoring at least a civil relationship between the two.

Mercedes managed to achieved this with Hamilton backtracking on his comments and saying on social media that the pair had put Monaco behind them and have been “friends for a long time and as friends have had our ups and downs”.

Dominant machinery in Formula 1 in the past has not been immune from the occasional or incessant reliability troubles, and the Mercedes WO5 Hybrid is not an exception as proven with Hamilton's misfiring cylinder in Australia and in Canada as the two cars, after another front-row lockout and race lead, experienced MGU-K failures which proved fatal to Hamilton's brakes and forced him into retirement, while Rosberg limped home to second having to nurse his brakes and conceding the race lead and win to Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull.

The fact Rosberg crossed the line only 4 seconds behind Ricciardo with brake and power troubles, for over the remaining third of the race, again confirmed the enormity of the performance advantage that remained with Mercedes, but did reveal that through reliability hiccups Mercedes were not impervious.

Another streak was to come to an end as the Williams team grabbed a shock pole and 1-2 on the grid in Austria and ended Mercedes' run of pole positions with both Rosberg and Hamilton, who failed to put in a lap in Q3 both having shortcomings with the car in qualifying. However, normal service did resume in the race as the two Mercedes drivers recovered to take a sixth 1-2 finish of the season with Rosberg leading Hamilton, albeit having Valtteri Bottas in 3rd just 8 seconds down the road, showing that Williams made life more difficult for the Silver Arrows team on race day.

The first of two “home” races for the Mercedes team saw the next race in Silverstone, but there were mixed emotions in the camp as home favourite Hamilton found himself in a lowly grid position after making another mistake in qualifying aborting his final Q3 lap and more or less handing pole to Rosberg.

There would be mixed emotions on race day again as Rosberg retired with gearbox problems, while Hamilton quickly climbed through the field and inherited the race lead and eventual win from his team-mate. This was another missed opportunity for Mercedes to build on their already major advantage in the constructors championship, and this would somewhat be the norm for the rest of the first half of the season as brake problems for Hamilton in qualifying at Hockenheim saw him having to recover ground once again on race day, while Rosberg achieved the feat Hamilton achieved two weeks prior and took top honours in his home race, with Hamilton finishing in third place instead of a likely 1-2 finish in Germany.

The change in circumstances with team orders came in Hungary when Hamilton found himself battling through the field after an engine fire ended his qualifying as soon as it started – and ahead of pole-sitter Rosberg, who led from pole once again but was caught out by the safety car.

With the Mercedes team knowing their drivers had found themselves battling other drivers for the lead on strategy, the team ordered Hamilton to let Rosberg pass for the sake of the latter, but Hamilton refused and cited giving away any kind of advantage to his championship rival and Rosberg not actually being close enough to effect a pass as the main reasons for not letting him by.

Hamilton was proven correct as Mercedes came home in third and fourth places, with Hamilton finishing just half a second ahead of Rosberg, who had much fresher tyres having pitted after not finding a way past his team-mate, and so Hamilton reduced the gap in the championship. Even team boss Wolff admitted after the race that Hamilton was right in his defence and Mercedes were in a state of panic lacking the capacity to exploit their performance advantage as a result of the Hungaroring's tight, narrow track nature not promoting overtaking opportunities.

After the summer break, things between Hamilton and Rosberg finally seemed to have boiled over at Spa as Rosberg after being jumped off the line by Hamilton at the race start, clipped his team-mate on the second lap which inflicted a puncture and eventual retirement for Hamilton.

While Rosberg sustained front wing damage and limped home in 2nd behind Ricciardo once more. Significantly, it was the first on-track incident between the two and finally bit the team hard with valuable points lost, this then prompted Wolff and Lauda to intervene in the situation after they both declared it “unacceptable”, with Hamilton publicly saying that Rosberg admitted to touching him on purpose as well as the powers-that-be blaming the German for the coming together afterwards.

But tensions never went beyond those at Spa for the remainder of the season, much to the relief of the Mercedes camp. Both Rosberg and Hamilton were still granted the license to race freely, providing nothing like Spa occurred again but Spa was pivotal to the Drivers championship as Hamilton reigned supreme in all but one of the remaining seven races and five 1-2 finishes that followed and helped Mercedes clinch their first constructors title in Sochi as well as place Hamilton well for his 2nd title.

However, Rosberg's own aspirations began to disappear as he only scored one more win and suffered the injustice of finishing off the campaign in fourteenth place with a wounded car in the championship-deciding round at Abu Dhabi and paved the way for Hamilton to be crowned champion.

But in a season that has been testing and challenging the Mercedes team and their management, all you can say is that Mercedes have been the best team on the grid, they have delivered in the W05 a consistent and competitive car that has saw them win their first Drivers and Constructors Championships since Juan Manuel Fangio in 1955.

Lewis Hamilton – 384 points / 1st in the Driver's championship

Lewis Hamilton moved to the Mercedes team with the strong belief that he would stand a much better chance of battling for championships from 2014 onwards, with 2013 somewhat being a transition and bedding-in year for him, and he hasn't been disappointment by the tools at his disposal performance-wise.

The package that Mercedes had put together for this season presented Hamilton with his best chance of delivering a second world championship that eluded him but was made to make hard work of it and was instantly on the back foot from the season-opener in Australia as a misfiring cylinder saw him lag 25 points behind Rosberg..

But with four wins on the bounce from Malaysia to Spain after an engine problem deprived him of the opportunity to convert his pole into a win in the opening race at Australia, his hard-fought wins in Bahrain and Spain when staring narrow defeat in the race with his team-mate Rosberg having tyre advantages sparked the thought of Hamilton being unbeatable and running away with the championship.

However, his inability to be more composed as he is faster than Rosberg over a single-lap, with Canada and Silverstone being two prime examples, is one of the two main reasons why he wasn't leading the championship at this stage of the season, with the other reason being that most of the unreliability suffered by Mercedes fell on his side.

We saw this happening to Hamilton mostly in qualifying at Hockenheim and Germany, where his form in practice would seem to imply likely pole positions were on the cards and most costly in races in Australia and in Canada, with both races being massive setbacks to his championship aspirations.

The reliability problems being predominantly on Hamilton's car fueled conspiracies from his fans of Mercedes favouring a certain German driver in a German car for the championship, which Mercedes on social media and Lauda in the press have rubbished completely.

Hamilton's combative, bold race craft that we've come accustomed to in seasons past did serve him well when in damage-limitation mode in races such as Austria, also at Silverstone where a home win was inherited from his team-mate and most notably in Hockenheim and Hungary. Unlike in qualifying, fewer, if any mistakes, have been committed by Hamilton on race day.

There have been peaks in the intensity of his championship battle during the season, with his post-race reaction in Monaco not bringing out the best of Hamilton in the wake of not having priority over race strategy, his team-mate's controversial off-track excursion in qualifying and having to limp home to second place after problems with his vision during the latter parts of the race and also having to stand his ground (and rightfuly so) in Hungary as he defied a request from his team to let Rosberg through paid off as he barely fended him off for third place at the end of the race, without the strategic advantage given earlier on.

As close as the championship fight was between the drivers in the latter stages of the season, Hamilton used all of his previous experience of battling for championships towards the business end of the season But one more retirement awaited Hamilton at Spa, where he and Rosberg came into contact at the end of Kemmel straight on lap two which sent Hamilton down the order with a puncture and eventual retirement after Hamilton jumping the German at the start

Afterwards, Hamilton never finished outside the top two and dominated the latter half of the season, winning all but one of the remaining seven races, including the championship-deciding double points race in Abu Dhabi to secure the championship. The one race he didn't win, (which was Brazil) still demonstrated Hamilton's edge over Rosberg on raw pace, but fell short of the win due to costly mistakes in both qualifying and the race.

Even though Hamilton hasn’t managed to beat Rosberg in qualifying this season by 7 times to 11 times, Hamilton has finished more races and laps than Rosberg which wasn't a huge surprise and showed in the process that consistency and also experience is the key to beating your team-mate on a regular basis, even if reliability has hit Hamilton more in qualifying than in the race compared to Rosberg.

Even though Hamilton left sizeable pieces for Rosberg to pick up throughout the course of the season due to reliability or driver error, Hamilton was clearly pushed hard for the championship but eventually overcame the hardships to deliver his second championship and he truly deserves it.

Nico Rosberg – 317 points / 2nd in the Driver's Championship

After beating Michael Schumacher during their three-year tenure as team-mates in Mercedes, many saw racing his team mate Hamilton in the 2014 season as a good indicator to where Rosberg sits amongst the most elite drivers in the sport today.

Many expected Hamilton to have a comprehensive edge over Rosberg given that the 2014 chassis would be better suited to Hamilton compared to the 2013 chassis. While that may be the case if you look at the statistics at the end of the season, Rosberg proved to be more of a formidable rival to Hamilton's than many initially thought before this season.

Even though Rosberg managed to beat Hamilton in qualifying this season by 11 times to 7 times, Hamilton did finish more races and laps than Rosberg. This was as a result of having greater composure throughout one lap in Bahrain, Canada, Austria and Silver-stone.

As much as they owed to Hamilton committing those mistakes, it meant Rosberg's team-mate felt pressured and had enough speed in hand to trouble him over the course of the season. Reliability also aided Rosberg's Saturdays further, particularly in Germany and Hungary and a superb damage-limitation drive to finish in second place in Canada when both Mercedes were hit with ERS failures and brake problems.

Reliability hasn't been entirely in Rosberg's favour as brake problems on both Mercedes in Canada saw him have to drive around the problems en route to 2nd, while his sole race retirement of the season so far came at Silverstone with a gearbox problem when leading.

Only three of his 11 pole positions were turned into race wins this season and even those wins were due to racing at tracks where it's virtually impossible to overtake (Monaco), Hamilton starting from afar (Germany) and the latter failing to keep it together when he was on course to leapfrogging Rosberg (Brazil).

His two lights-to-flag wins in Australia and at home in Hockenheim were among the most comfortable and profitable for him this season, but also showed the demonstration of the intelligence Rosberg has of knowing the car he's got underneath him and the ability to measure himself compared to others around him.

However, Rosberg did profit more from the ugly and controversial moments, especially when his questioned qualifying incident secured his pole and a cruise to victory in Monaco and stretching his championship lead once more at Spa when the pair tangled on the second lap, something Mercedes faulted Rosberg for. One could say he won ugly in those circumstances but being able to add a major chunk of points to his tally with his team-mate left stranded at times is an advantage that Rosberg took when he could this season.

When Rosberg looks back on this season, he'll rue not being able to convert that into better showings in the races consistently as he was outmatched by Hamilton when it came down to speed over a race distance, particularly in the second half of the season following the summer break, with Rosberg only standing on the top step once more during that period.

Placing this aside, he was edged out in their close scraps in Bahrain and Spain despite being on the faster tyre and failed to make the most of Hamilton's poor start in Monza. He gave away the race lead after locking-up at the first chicane twice – and had his defences breached by his team-mate when they went wheel-to-wheel with one another in Suzuka and Austin.

Although Rosberg also did suffer the indiginity of having unreliability when in the lead at Silverstone, he struggled to get running in Singapore due to an electrical problem and finally he did not have all the tools at his disposal to keep his fading championship chances alive in Abu Dhabi when he ended up touring the Yas Marina circuit without ERS and a car that was deteriorating as the race went.

He elected to finish the race despite this and see out the season, knowing very well that Hamilton was on his way to be crowned world champion. But even though Rosberg was victorious in defeat, it is clear by looking at his race performance this season as well as supporting the fact that points aren't won for qualifying well, Rosberg has answered his critics well enough and can be considered to be among the elite drivers in the sport's current era at this moment in time.

In conclusion, the Mercedes team have had a brilliant season. After several seasons of lying in limbo between the front and the midfield, everything seemed to have finally fallen into place at last and the Mercedes team have reaped the benefits of their long-term project.

2014 saw Mercedes emphatically dethrone Red Bull as the dominant force in Formula 1 with what some argue is the most dominant machinery assembled in the sport's history in the shape of the W05 Hybrid. Their performance advantage was as clear as daylight from as early as February this year during pre-season testing, when the car emerged miles ahead above the chasing pack's challengers.

In regards to their drivers, firstly Hamilton did have to make up for deficits and misfortunes created by car problems characterised his season as the chaser rather than leader and his ability to bounce back from disappointment was evident. Even though he retired in Australia and Spa, which Hamilton regards as a turning point in the season of his intense title fight with his team-mate, he followed this up by a series of wins that he relied on to keep himself on the path to achieving his second world title.

With Hamilton racking up over double the number of race wins, his eleven wins to Rosberg's five wins over the course of the season underlined Hamilton's sheer superiority over a race distance and this consistency allowed him to become world champion this season and he does thoroughly deserves the title.

In regards to Rosberg, many pundits and fans believed this season would show if Rosberg would be considered amongst the best drivers in the sport today. With his performances this season, I believe he should be seen as one of the revelations of this year.

Despite enjoying the reliability that his team-mate could only crave for during the first half of the season especially, it shouldn't flatter Rosberg's superior composure and decision-making over one-lap along with his highly-regarded diligence that he has shown to subside the extra few tenths Hamilton has had over him over the course of the season in the races thus surprisingly taking eleven pole positions to his team-mate's seven and has painted a picture of him being more consistent especially during qualifying, even though Hamilton has had the edge over him in races on Sundays where it matters most.

But Rosberg has been a credible rival to Hamilton this season and even though he too deserved to be crowned world champion, he didn't do enough when it mattered most but Rosberg has shown that he has the skill, ability and the talent to fight for a championship and if everything can come together for him, he will be a worthy world champion in the near future without a shadow of a doubt.

What can we expect from the 2015 season from Mercedes? I see Mercedes being the firm favourites and the benchmark once more next season. This is due to the stability in the regulations, continuity in driver line ups, experience as front runners and being heavily involved in a championship battle and most importantly, Red Bull and Ferrari's efforts to have the engine freeze relaxed didn't amount to anything.

As for Hamilton and Rosberg next season, both will be determined to raise their game further, with Hamilton wanting to retain his title and Rosberg wanting to clinch the title away from him and that'll only serve the team well. Will 2015 be yet another season where we see another close and challenging battle for the championship? Let's hope so.

Sarah Jones