MOTORSPORT: Formula 1… here we go again

The start of the first Formula 1 pre-season test looked promising, with carsales.com.au global ambassador Daniel Ricciardo fastest in the new Red Bull RB14, but it has ended on a familiar note with Mercedes way ahead.

Drivers have had difficulty getting in and out of the cockpits because of the compulsory new 'halo' head protection.

The Williams team even provided a two-step ladder for its drivers, while Toro Rosso's young Frenchman Pierre Gasly says he's torn the back of his racesuit many times and calls it all "a big mess".

The weather has been bad in Barcelona most of the week - snow meant there was virtually no running on Wednesday - but when it cleared up and the temperature rose last night (Australian time) Lewis Hamilton stamped Merc's continued authority.

Hamilton lapped the Circuit de Catalunya in the Mercedes W09 0.521 seconds faster than Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne in a McLaren MCL33 powered by Renault's V6 hybrid rather than Honda's.

But, of the seven grades of Pirelli slick tyres available to teams this year, Vandoorne was on the softest, what is called the 'hyper-soft' - four grades softer than those Hamilton had.

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton's main challenger last season as Mercedes dominated F1 for the fourth year of the era of hybrid power units, was 0.9 seconds off the Brit's pace, also on softer tyres than him.

Vettel says he has "a good impression" of Ferrari's SF71H and claims the competition will be "very close" in the season starting in Melbourne in three weeks, with just another four days of testing in Spain next week.

But the signs are ominous for a fifth year of Mercedes supremacy.

Many 'experts' try to dismiss test times because of cars running differing fuel loads, tyres, engine modes, but the three-pointed star brand has been playing its opposition on a break since the introduction of the hybrids in 2014 and won't be making it any easier for them to catch up.

The BBC's chief F1 writer, Andrew Benson, described Hamilton's performance last night as "imposing" and pointed out that Vandoorne's tyres should have been "in the region of at least two seconds faster" than Hamilton's.

The four-time and reigning world champion said he was "really happy".

"I don't normally like testing, but we hadn't had many miles [because of the weather] so I was keen to stretch the [car's] legs and it definitely feels like a better car," Hamilton said.

Red Bull had a stop-start day with what it called "minor mechanical niggles".

Ricciardo's teammate Max Verstappen was the only Red Bull driver in action last night and his best lap was 2.7 seconds slower than Hamilton's, leaving him ninth of 15 drivers on the timesheet.

"We had a couple of little hiccups and in the afternoon I had a little moment where I went into the gravel," Verstappen said.

"I'm quite happy with the car so far, and maybe the second week [of testing] will show a bit more how we compare against our rivals.

"I certainly hope it's a bit sunnier next week."

Ricciardo had been pleased to top the timesheet on the medium-compound tyres on the opening day, 0.2 seconds ahead of Hamilton's Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, and to do 105 laps.

But the Australian knew it meant little with the temperature around two degrees Celsius, something unlikely to be experienced during the 21-round world championship.

"It's hard to get anything working with tyres in those temperatures, especially as they've also re-laid the surface here," Ricciardo said.

"When it's cold there really isn't any grip.

"Still, a good day, we got in over 100 laps, with one run of 35 laps - so reliability was solid."

Ricciardo also was in the RB14 on Wednesday, but only for a solitary lap twice - taking an excursion through the gravel in the treacherous conditions the second time and the team opted to pack up.

Red Bull's head of race engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin, claims to be "pretty happy with how the car runs", that the changes from the RB13 have been largely validated and that the problems Verstappen had last night were "easy fixes".

But then there's the matter of the huge gap to Mercedes.

Pleasing for Red Bull was that Toro Rosso, its junior team, completed the most laps over the four days - 326 (115 more than the senior team) - with its STR13 and the Honda power unit discarded by McLaren.

New Zealander Brendon Hartley, entering his first full season with Toro Rosso after some outings at the end of last season and a distinguished career with Porsche in sports car racing, found the Honda unit "very driveable" and with more power than the team had from Renault last year.

"I think they (McLaren) have made a mistake [switching from Honda to Renault power]," Hartley said.

Dual world champion Fernando Alonso, who repeatedly humiliated Honda over the three seasons McLaren used its units, sang a different tune though.

"Now we have a motor that is not an experiment. We have an engine that has won races in its 2017 version (two by Verstappen, one by Ricciardo)," he said.

"We also have two more racing teams working with this engine (Red Bull and the Renault factory team). In other words, if we have problems, then each of the other teams can help to find solutions faster."

But solutions to overhaul Mercedes? Think not.

ARC without its reigning champion

The Australian Rally Championship starts this weekend with the Eureka Rally around Ballarat in Victoria, but without reigning champion Nathan Quinn - who is opting to spend his limited budget on other activities this year.

The field is headed by Victorian multiple champion Eli Evans in an AP4-specification MINI Cooper and 2016 champion, Sydneysider Molly Taylor, again in her Subaru WRX STI.

Last year's young Eureka Rally winner, Canberra's Harry Bates, is back with co-driver John McCarthy in an AP4 Toyota Yaris in which they had a troubled run after their success at Ballarat in an S2000 Corolla.

Bates' younger brother Lewis - they're both sons of multiple national champion Neal Bates - also is competing.

Evans and Taylor have new co-drivers, with Ben Searcy alongside Evans following Glenn Weston's retirement and New Zealander Malcolm Read with Taylor, replacing the retired Bill Hayes.