• 2015 season preview

A legacy on the line?

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ESPN looks at some of the main talking points ahead of the new season.

A fresh start

A new helmet?

• If Vettel really wants to mark his switch to Ferrari, an iconic helmet has to be on the agenda. The German switched his helmet with frustrating regularity at Red Bull but doing so now will be more noticeable against the striking red of Ferrari. He adorned a simple red and white helmet for his Fiorano test last month and like Schumacher before him he has the chance to stamp his new identity with a new - and permanent - lid. Time will tell if the four-time champion obliges.

A German multiple world champion joining Ferrari in the middle of a championship drought looking to take it back to the top of the sport is a scenario familiar to F1 fans. Sebastian Vettel's switch to Ferrari has remarkable similarities to his idol Michael Schumacher's move to Maranello in 1996. These associations are perhaps unfortunate for Vettel, with Schumacher likely to be a yardstick used by the Tifosi to measure his career in red. A bit like Schumacher's at the height of his powers at Ferrari, because of the dominance of the Red Bull cars he has driven Vettel's achievements have not received the reverence they deserve.

To his detractors, 2014 ruthlessly exposed him as some sort of fraud as he struggled to adapt to the post-blown diffuser era of V6s. He wasn't alone - new team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had similar issues. Vettel showed slight improvement as the year went on but heads to Ferrari with something to prove. If Schumacher is used as a yardstick to judge his Ferrari career as a whole, Fernando Alonso will be used to measure Vettel in 2015. Alonso blew Raikkonen out of the water last season - adding weight to the argument he is the sport's best driver. Vettel should go down as an all-time great for his achievements at Red Bull but if he cannot beat Raikkonen in the same fashion it will be a significant blow to his reputation. Ferrari is a team in transition and immediate wins will be a huge ask so his results compared to the Finn alongside him will be the most telling.

Catch me if you can

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Lewis Hamilton finally captured overdue title number two in 2014. We've seen the good, the bad and the ugly from the Brit in the years since 2008 but last year was definitely a large helping of the former. From the word go in Australia Hamilton appeared to have found the car of his dreams, taking pole and then, after retirement in Melbourne, marching to four straight wins. In truth his season stuttered slightly in the middle of the year but, aside from his three retirements, Hamilton never finished off the podium. Nico Rosberg made the fight interesting but at the end of the season Hamilton was in another world, especially on race day.

Off the track Hamilton is now showing the maturity which was sometimes lacking in the early days of his career and he seems to have finally become his own man - the split from his management company in the middle of last year's championship fight was proof of that. Love him or loathe him, there is no doubting Hamilton has grown as an individual, especially since his switch to Mercedes, and this was key in his championship last year and will be again in 2015. If Mercedes remains the team to beat it would be a brave man who bets against Hamilton being a three-time world champion come November 29 - or earlier.

Back to the future

Honda's return to F1 with McLaren rekindles one of the great Formula One partnerships: between 1988 and 1992 they won four drivers' championships and four constructors' championships together. The red and white McLaren of that era is one of the sport's most iconic but former glories mean little on the back of two winless seasons. The arrival of Fernando Alonso gives both parties a second chance to rectify the wrongs of 2007 and shows how serious Ron Dennis is about taking McLaren back to the top of the sport - it seemed unthinkable even a year ago the Spaniard could ever return. Alonso very rarely leaves the circuit having not extracted the maximum out of his car but he will need patience to match his bullish aggression this year as it overcomes the teething problems with Honda. The Spaniard even admitted as much when he was unveiled by McLaren in December.

Fernando Alonso and Ron Dennis relationship will remain a point of interest © McLaren

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The move to McLaren has a "win or bust" feel for 33-year-old Alonso - if he fails to win a title at Woking it seems unlikely he will get another chance, unless Hamilton and Mercedes' relationship hits a snag this year and the seat he covets the most becomes available. That scenario seems increasingly unlikely, however, meaning Alonso will need to reign in the disruptive side to his personality to help move McLaren and Honda back to the top. Add into the mix his partnership with a rejuvenated Jenson Button and all the pieces are in place for a compelling storyline throughout the year.

Unfreeze

In 2014 the best thing at stopping Mercedes winning was Mercedes. Without reliability issues, strategy miscues in Hungary and a collision in Belgium, Mercedes may well have completed a clean sweep of victories last year. One key reason behind its dominance was that its engine advantage was locked in at the beginning of the season thanks to the engine homologation deadline. Due to a loophole in the FIA's regulations for this season, that does not exist in 2015 for Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari, while Honda will receive an average of its rivals' unused tokens from Melbourne onwards. Game on, right? Well, not exactly.

Just because engine development can be spread through the year, Mercedes will not be a stationary target and there are no guarantees it won't just pull further ahead of the pack. After all, it finished last season with a massive time advantage in its pocket over Renault and Ferrari. The three manufacturers have only been given leeway to spread the development it would have packed in before February 28 across the season, rather than gaining additional tokens to develop during the season as Ferrari and Red Bull originally wanted. Either way, it's a chance for the others to catch up all year and means they will have no excuses for failing to cut the gap in the middle of the season as they did in 2014.

More money, more problems

The cost of competing in Formula One came into sharp focus last year, with Caterham and Marussia falling into administration and the other small teams threatening a rebellion at the United States Grand Prix. In hindsight it was a scarcely believable turn of events for a sport which generates so much income. The weeks following the demise of the two minnows highlighted the sheer level of inequality in revenue sharing in Formula One as F1 seemed to teeter on the brink. It also revealed the power granted to the FIA by the Strategy Group which was, in one sitting, able to vote down the budget cap supposed to be coming into force this year. Nothing much has changed despite a great amount of filibuster and unfortunately the issue is unlikely to go away in the upcoming season. GP2 champion Jolyon Palmer's inability to find anything better than a reserve driver role at Lotus is the tip of the iceberg and highlights a growing problem; most talented young drivers need the smaller teams due to the lack of F1 opportunities further up the grid, but the smaller teams need money not talent to survive. At the time of publication Marussia had hopes of returning to the grid but it is a sad state of affairs when Formula One is about to start a season with just nine teams.

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Nate is assistant editor of ESPNF1

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