How many races will Mercedes win this season?

[iotar__]

Since polls are useless I thought I should start at least one myself. Simple question: how many of the remaining races will Mercedes win this season? Team, not engine manufacturer.
13-17 seems the safest option. Voting ends before Malaysian GP.

[mertol]

Safest? Looking at their engine problem rate 7-12 is optimistic. I voted for 1-6.

[Artur Craft]

By Barcelona, Red Bull will be already dominating again. Just look at their 2nd place with Ricciardo after all that happened on winter testings. It's ominous

[Daliracing]

i did 1-6 because i think teams like Ferrari, Mclaren and Redbull will be better after some races

[ScottB]

By Barcelona, Red Bull will be already dominating again. Just look at their 2nd place with Ricciardo after all that happened on winter testings. It's ominous

2nd place, what, 30 seconds behind Rosberg, who quite possibly wasn't pushing particularly hard.

Then there's the possible increased performance he was getting from their fuel level infringement. Still a cracking effort mind, but making up the massive gap to Mercedes, then getting out far enough in front to 'dominate' seems unlikely.

[SectorOne]

Add a safety car on top of that gap, and a missing 5 tenths due to Mercedes going conservative with the fuel flow rate while Red Bull did the opposite.

Just wrap your head around this one:

Rosberg set the fastest lap of the race and was done on lap 19 <--- ! (keep in mind of all the fuel left in the car)

And it was 1 tenths faster then Bottas who set the second fastest time on lap 56 <--- ! (almost empty tank)

Third fastest? Alonso a tenth of Bottas on lap 56 <--- !

[myurr]

By Barcelona, Red Bull will be already dominating again. Just look at their 2nd place with Ricciardo after all that happened on winter testings. It's ominous

2nd place, what, 30 seconds behind Rosberg, who quite possibly wasn't pushing particularly hard.

Then there's the possible increased performance he was getting from their fuel level infringement. Still a cracking effort mind, but making up the massive gap to Mercedes, then getting out far enough in front to 'dominate' seems unlikely.

Don't get me wrong, by Barcelona Red Bull could well be making life difficult for the Mercedes boys but I can't see them dominating unless Mercedes really struggle to develop the car. That doesn't seem to be the case at the moment, they're bringing lots of small upgrades all of which seem to be staying on the car so they should be working.

[ScottB]

By Barcelona, Red Bull will be already dominating again. Just look at their 2nd place with Ricciardo after all that happened on winter testings. It's ominous

2nd place, what, 30 seconds behind Rosberg, who quite possibly wasn't pushing particularly hard.

Then there's the possible increased performance he was getting from their fuel level infringement. Still a cracking effort mind, but making up the massive gap to Mercedes, then getting out far enough in front to 'dominate' seems unlikely.

Don't get me wrong, by Barcelona Red Bull could well be making life difficult for the Mercedes boys but I can't see them dominating unless Mercedes really struggle to develop the car. That doesn't seem to be the case at the moment, they're bringing lots of small upgrades all of which seem to be staying on the car so they should be working.

Plus it seems we haven't seen the full potential of the Merc in its current trim, as others develop, Mercedes will be able to both develop, and 'turn up' their car towards its maximum.

Fully expect Red Bull, and maybe Mclaren to be capable of keeping them honest, at least at some races, but Mercedes seems to have a formidable car advantage.

[SectorOne]

Look at both their stints, it´s not even close.

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... 0Ricciardo

He seemed to just casually drag out 1,5 seconds on a lap if he needed.

[spadeflush]

7-12 seems realistic keeping in mind reliability issues that will crop up once in a while. I think the W05 is a lot faster than it showed yesterday. Red Bull will eventually catch up, question is when? I do not doubt the development capacity of the 2014 Mercedes team. They look like a team on a mission and 2014 was always going to be the year they would fight for the championship. So far they have been right on track.

[beelsebob]

I'm pretty sure Mercedes do indeed have more than 2 seconds a lap over their nearest competitor at the moment. Given that, I seriously doubt anyone will be close to them within half a season.

[thomin]

I also voted 7-12 which I think is even somewhat conservative with 13-17 being a very reasonable possibility. The way Nico dominated was just too impressive.

Yes, Red Bull will be there and I also expect McLaren and Ferrari to become genuine contenders for race wins by the end of the season, but the gap right now is so big that it's very difficult not to see them continuing to dominate at least until half the season is over. And even if Red Bull, Ferrari, et. al. will be there by the summer break, Mercedes won't stop to have good races either.

On the other hand, even if Mercedes continues to be dominant throughout the year, there will be the occasional reliability issue, maybe bad luck with the weather or a safety car, a bad pit-stop or a shunt at the start. That's why I think 7-12 is the safest bet.

[iotar__]

I wondered if they can win all of them. Unlikely - double DNF can happen, some incidents, rain. Next thing: development will be huge this season, seconds to find, aero will kick in.

F1 seems to be full of cars great in fast corners: RB the best, Lotus as fast as Merc and now Ferrari (Allison), that for now finish 30s plus behind Mercedes . It will be interesting to compare predictions after one race to reality after the season.

[Daliracing]

Would this season be like 2009? A great start off Brawn GP but at the second half of the season they didn't dominate as much as in the first part. would it repeat?

[Aesto]

7-12, and that's a very conservative estimate, 13-17 could easily happen. 7 races is not a whole lot, even McLaren managed to do that in 2012, and yet they didn't even win either championship.

The 25s gap to Ricciardo flatters the other teams. If it hadn't been for Hamilton's DNF (i.e. the Merc would have raced each other at full power rather than Rosberg just coasting to the finish) and the Saftey Car, the Mercedes very well could have lapped everyone else.

Also, unlike Brawn, Mercedes actually has the money to keep developing the car.