Motorsport boss Toto Wolff is sure Mercedes has made progress in addressing their weakness but still anticipates a "big challenge" from their rivals at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Despite Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas taking a dominant 1-2 at Monza in the previous race, previous form both at this race and this season mean many expect the current leaders of both championships to face a repeat of two years ago, where tyre problems and the strength of others saw Mercedes not set the pace for the first time in the hybrid era.

However, looking back on that race and what his team has done since Wolff believes what occurred that weekend led to a response which actually led to a massive improvement in how the Brackley outfit operates.

“Identifying clearly our strengths and our weaknesses have been a strength of our team in recent seasons,” he claimed. “As we have pushed to become better and stronger in every area, we have put the finger in the wound in order to understand the root causes of both our good performances and the bad ones.

“In 2015, Singapore provided us with one of the most painful experiences in recent seasons, so we rolled up the sleeves, learned from it and managed to bounce back with a great win last year," he pointed out.

“But notwithstanding that success, this is a circuit we have found difficult to master with its combination of short, sharp corners, relatively short straights and bumpy surface and we head to Asia this time round with the expectation that we have a big challenge ahead of us.”

What makes Singapore so difficult for Mercedes is every deficiency they have shown before is a strength needed around the city circuit whether it be optimising mechanical grip from the tyres in slow speed corners or managing the temperatures in hot conditions.

“On the surface, Singapore is the kind of circuit that should favour both Ferrari and Red Bull," Wolff admitted. “Both have shown strong performance on low-speed circuits demanding maximum downforce, and we have found life more difficult at those places in 2017.

“Sometimes, characteristics like this are simply in the DNA of a car, nevertheless we learned a lot from our struggles in Monaco, raised our level of performance significantly in Hungary and we have made good progress in understanding what we need to do in order to get the most from the chassis.”