A solid 3-4 finish is pretty good, especially considering the mess of futility that last year was. I am pretty happy about it.Thinking about it, I think the deficiencies, we can assume that the Ferrari engine is a huge step forward this year. Maybe not "Mercedes" class -- although the engine is powering perenial back-marker Sauber into more reasonable competitive results, and we know traditionally their car isn't much good -- but still pretty good (the engine). So from that, I think that the Williams car is inferior to the Ferrari car, which fits with my theory of the Williams merely being the best also-ran last year which benefited from the Mercedes dominance. With the Ferrari resurgence, Williams is once again behind the serious leaders. The other Mercedes team that benefited last year, Force India, is similarly unremarkable, and Lotus is really just coming to grips with things. Clearly, the Mercedes is less of an advantage this year.
Renault is in big trouble, and not just because Red Bull is threatening to have a temper tantrum and go home. Their engine is where the Ferrari of 2014 was -- which was nowhere.
Red Bull having a gearbox which is apparently made of glass isn't helping any either. This is the first post-Newey year, but you'd expect them to have their act together a little better than this.
Honda is of course the worst of the worst, but that's because they are in their first year and anyways are showing a surprising amount of realism in their expectations. I think Q2 is a reasonable goal for this year, judging from what's happened so far this year.
For me, I think this is as good as we can expect for this year. Ferrari isn't going to take the race to the Mercedes week in and week out, but with reliability they can collect solid points and be there for when the Mercedes duo trip over each other. Perhaps in the desert at Bahrain things might go better, and perhaps at circuits where engine power is less important (ie: Monaco) they will have a chance, but for me the titles are already out of reach. And frankly I'm okay with that.
