Wolff: ‘Sheer power’ gains makes Ferrari clear favourites

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says Ferrari’s “sheer power” advantage makes its chief Formula 1 rival clear favourites for the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix. 

While the reigning world champions have started the 2019 season with back-to-back one-two finishes, Ferrari returned to form in Bahrain and dominated proceedings until a mid-race capitulation handed an unlikely victory to Lewis Hamilton. 

Sebastian Vettel spun while battling Hamilton over second place and ultimately dropped to fifth, while Charles Leclerc looked set to claim his maiden grand prix win until late engine issues robbed him of what would have been a convincing victory. 

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Wolff admitted Mercedes were lacking in straight-line speed after Ferrari locked out the front row of the Sakhir grid in qualifying, before revealing the true extent of the Scuderia’s advantage following the second round of the campaign. 

“I would say if they [Ferrari] are able to maintain those power levels on a power sensitive circuit like Shanghai, they are the favourites clearly, because the lap time benefit might even be more than in Bahrain,” Wolff said. 

“It’s not drag – it’s never one silver bullet or one simple action but the drag levels we have calculated would have been a tenth maybe in difference. 

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“It’s sheer power,” he added. “We have seen different power levels in the race [in Bahrain] and also between the cars. So that needs to be digested now.

“We expected them to be strong in Melbourne after what we’ve seen in terms of pace in Barcelona testing, so Melbourne was more the surprise than actually Bahrain. 

“Bahrain was very strong, straight-line performance is unbelievable. The power they have displayed is unmatched by anybody. There was, I think in qualifying five tenths on the straights only. 

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“That is really difficult to compete with. So we have to get used to this level of performance in my opinion and see Melbourne as the outlier.”

Having dominated the Melbourne season-opener, Valtteri Bottas admitted Mercedes has work to do to catch up to Ferrari’s level of performance in Bahrain and cited its apparent power advantage as a concern. Wolff concurred with his driver and conceded that finding such engine gains will prove almost “impossible”. 

“Both [drag and power] are difficult to catch up,” Wolff explained. “Because if there was really that kind of engine development between Melbourne and Bahrain, that is something that is impossible to catch up, or at least for us. 

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“And we need to really understand which role the chassis played in all that. On the chassis it’s a constant development slope that you are trying to keep as steep as possible but on the power unit side because the regulations are very mature, the returns get smaller and smaller. 

“We’re speaking about milliseconds gains from one engine upgrade to the next or maybe a tenth or two from one season to the other but big jumps are rather unusual.”