Competition at last!

Formula One champions Mercedes are not resting on their laurels and expect to face a mighty challenge from arch-rivals Ferrari and McLaren this coming season.

There are times the champions will fall to Ferrari and the team also see McLaren catching up fast after a dismal 2015 for the Honda-powered team, engine head Andy Cowell said.

“Nobody here is assuming we are going to win. Everybody here is assuming we’re going to get beaten by Ferrari and Honda are a big threat,” the Mercedes executive said on a recent factory visit.

Ferrari only won three of 19 races last season, the first year at Maranello for four-times champion Sebastian Vettel after the German’s move from Red Bull.

Mercedes won the rest, with Britain’s Lewis Hamilton clinching his third title and winning 10 races, including the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, to team-mate Nico Rosberg’s six. The team have won 32 of 38 races in the last two years.

McLaren, the sport’s second most successful team after Ferrari, have not won a race since 2012 and were powered by Mercedes engines until starting a new partnership with Honda last year.

They have Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Britain’s Jenson Button, both world champions, racing for them.

Honda faced a steep learning curve, returning a year after the introduction of the new V6 turbo hybrid engines triggered the era of Mercedes domination. McLaren finished ninth of 10 teams last season, plagued by unreliability and a lack of power.

“They have come in quickly and they are learning in front of the public but they’re hugely determined, and partnered with McLaren, who are hugely determined,” said Cowell.

“We know exactly how McLaren work in terms of a data-driven approach, so they are going to make some big, big gains,” he believes.

Cowell said there was plenty more to come from the Mercedes engine, with some ‘mind-blowing’ gains seen in the area of thermal efficiency – how much of the energy in the fuel is converted into power from the engine.

The season, with a record 21 races, starts in Australia on March 20 and comes to Bahrain for race two on April 3. If Cowell’s predictions are correct, F1 fans are in for a treat.