It's fair to say that, two years into Mercedes-Benz's return to Formula 1 team ownership, the Anglo-German outfit have still yet to scale the heights most expected when the German manufacturer bought the double Championship-winning Brawn team at the end of 2009.
Despite switching development focus to their 2011 car as early as the summer of the previous season, Mercedes failed to improve on fourth place in the Constructors' Championship and spent the majority of the year in relative obscurity, caught in 'no man's land' between the top three teams and the midfield pack. The reliability and consistency of the Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari cars kept Mercedes off the podium all season - something of a step backwards step considering Nico Rosberg finished third on three occasions in 2010.
Yet with such a formidable package on paper - a proven race-winning engine maker/owner in Mercedes, a multiple Championship-winning team boss in Ross Brawn, F1's most successful driver in Michael Schumacher and a fast, consistent and hungry team-mate in Rosberg - it's difficult to discern any reason to doubt their breakthrough might be imminent. With all the key ingredients for success apparently already in place, the squad's attempts to break the top three teams' stranglehold on the sport is likely to be one of the big themes of the year ahead.
Operationally, as you'd expect from any outfit operating with Brawn at the helm, Mercedes are as well drilled as any but, having inherited a reduced workforce in wake of the former team owner Honda's shock F1 pull-out from the sport in the winter of 2008, the team have recently acquired plenty of additional technical resource. But those high-profile arrivals of Bob Bell, Aldo Costa and Geoff Willis mid-way through last season are likely to have provided a shot in the arm in the creation and development path for the new W03, while the decision to sit out the first pre-season test at Jerez - a tactic employed by Red Bull in the past - should also pay off in vital extra wind tunnel time.
The reputation of the original Mercedes-Benz racing squad of the pre-war grand prix era, and the German squad's brief, but hugely successful, maiden F1 stint in 1954-55 followed by title-winning exploits as an engine supplies, increases the pressure on the modern-day 'Silver Arrows' to deliver regular podiums, and maybe even a maiden win, in 2012. Either way, they are a team to keep a close eye on.
