The boys are back in town

So when Hogan says the battle for the 2010 world championship is already a foregone conclusion, one should take note. Hogan believes it is a fact that Mercedes will be the constructors champion.

He is confident because Mercedes-Benz has the driving dream team of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton on its books. They are without doubt, Formula One's two best drivers.  Hamilton has already proved the new McLaren Mercedes to be a quick car in testing while Hogan is particularly  voluble about Schumacher, who he believes will be quick from the very first race.

There are few doubts that the two drivers will likely dominate and in all probability race each other for the title. Ross Brawn, head of the Mercedes GP team, certainly has no doubts. "We have absolute belief that Michael is going to perform," he says.  "I don't know if it will take a race or two to get to the level he will want to achieve. I personally don't think so. I think Michael will perform at a very high level straight away." Hogan supports this: "Look, he is a quick driver and quick drivers are always quick."

Despite being firm favourites, life for Hamilton and Schumacher are not without clouds. Both drivers' personal lives are currently under close scrutiny following the fallout from the Tiger Woods meltdown.

Journalists are taking a look at the private lives of every major global sports star and the two F1 stars are vulnerable if the glare of the media gets too severe.  Schumacher and Hamilton are not only the fastest drivers in the world but also arguably, alongside Roger Federer, the two most sponsor-friendly personalities on the planet.  Mercedes-Benz will do anything to ensure it stays that way.

Aside from the drivers, the new Mercedes-Benz team is maturing fast. The financial worries of the past have been removed and the Germans have big plans for its future. It is now guaranteed to get the very best technical support from the Mercedes Formula One engine facility, 40 miles away in Northamptonshire.

In fact, it is Mercedes-Benz's long term ambition to merge its race car and race engine factories together to create a facility on one site that will also manufacture high performance sports cars in the same way that Ferrari does. The German carmaker wants to create a Ferrari-type situation and get maximum image transfer from racing especially to its sports cars.

Certainly Mercedes, like Ferrari, now considers that it will be permanently involved in Formula One racing and that it will become part of its DNA as it is with Ferrari. Ferrari's secret has long been that its Formula One involvement means it has to spend hardly any money on advertising or marketing. Mercedes-Benz, as a brand currently spends more than $1bn  a year on advertising and marketing. Mercedes marketers think it will be able to substantially cut its advertising budget once the Formula One DNA takes root in the consumer's mindset.

Norbert Haug, Mercedes motorsport manager, and the principal architect of Mercedes-Benz's Formula One involvement says simply: "We want to promote our products." Questioned more closely he admits: "Our plan is to melt the two companies close together, the engines and the team."

For now, Haug says it is all about what he calls "creating efficiencies." But efficiency and Formula One have never been synonymous with eachother. Still, he insists: "Our target is to save even more money in the future, and some functions of both companies will be brought together to avoid redundancies. So there will be an efficiency programme."

He does admit that Mercedes is only at the start of its Formula One programme and hints that he considers the years spent as a McLaren partner largely wasted in terms of marketing benefit, especially when compared with what it can get from owning its own team: "Since November I think we accelerated in a very good way and a very good direction, but of course there's much more to come."

Mercedes-Benz is now actually running two teams cheaper than it previously ran one. Its cash involvement with McLaren has now ended and it is merely a technical supplier. Few have understood the substantial financial support Mercedes lent to McLaren in recent years as Haug confirms: "We will save a lot of money compared to what we have had five years ago, so all is going in the right direction, unless we should not be competitive. Then it's a different story. We want to compete for very good results on a regular basis. But this will be a tough championship, probably tougher than even before, but our setup should be alight and I'm quite positive about all of it."