Former Formula 1 driver and Sky Sports analyst Martin Brundle claimed that Mercedes had "hit the sweet spot" with the W17 after private testing in Barcelona last week.
With a new wave of regulations beginning this season with more of a focus on electrification, Mercedes has been touted as a favourite thanks to its record of success in the previous hybrid era. While team principal Toto Wolff attempted to temper expectations, claiming he was a "notorious pessimist", Brundle felt the Silver Arrows had "aced" the new set of regulations.
"Obviously, it’s a completely different concept of aerodynamics," the former driver told Sky Sports F1. "So Mercedes never really aced the ground effect car, did they? They never got it right. Porpoising, and then they had a car they didn’t understand, performing sometimes and not others, and they didn’t know why.
"So clearly, they look like they’ve sort of aced this completely different set of regulations. But we need to see what it’s like on normal track temperatures."
The new regulations feature a 50:50 split between internal combustion and electric power, among a number of other changes.
"It’s going to be about regeneration and filling their battery back-up," Brundle continued. "But of course, they’ll regen every bit as well as any other Mercedes-powered cars, probably Ferrari-powered cars too. But it does seem as if they’ve just hit the sweet spot pretty early doors on a number of things, as I was talking about earlier on."
He added: "Their concept looks good, but it’s too early to say that. And you might have a car that just fires its tyres up brilliantly on a cold day and then overheats them on a hot day, which we’ve seen Mercedes have that problem before.
"So I do think we need to stay calm on it. But you can’t ignore the relentless pace and reliability that they’ve had, so clearly, they’ve got a really good, cohesive package."
