Why Mercedes was right

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen certainly wasn’t buying it. Neither were quite a lot of Formula 1 fans when Mercedes came away from pre-season testing rubbishing its chances of fighting for victories at the start of grand prix racing’s second ground-effect generation.

A large part of that is down to the Silver Arrows having previously quelled expectations only to come up trumps. It was the team that cried ‘Wolff’. Last year was a case in point when new, clipped floor regulations were set