Daniel Ricciardo believes Mercedes continues to be the strongest team on the Formula 1 grid despite the performance of Ferrari in 2018.
The four-time consecutive world champions are facing their biggest threat from the Scuderia since the V6 turbo-hybrid era began in 2014 as the Italian team currently leads both championships.
Many also now think Maranello has surpassed Brixworth in terms of supplying the best performing engine but the gap between the two is very small indeed.
“They are not as dominant as they have been the last few years,” Ricciardo commented to Motorsport.com. “That was inevitably going to start to mellow out at some point.
“I still think they are the overall toughest package to beat on the grid but they’ve shown some signs of weaknesses in some areas.
“Compared to how they’ve been, yeah they look vulnerable, but still in the big scheme of things they are a strong team and difficult to beat.”
Looking ahead to this weekend’s German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, a second straight home race for Mercedes, their motorsport boss Toto Wolff also thinks his squad continues to set the benchmark.
“We didn’t score as many points in the triple-header as we had hoped for,” the Austrian admitted. “A lot of that was down to our own mistakes.
“However, there is a silver lining to this: while we didn’t maximise on points, we did bring the quickest car to all three races.
“So there are many reasons why we’re looking forward to the second half of the 2018 season,” he added. “We’re hungry, ambitious and want to kick on from here.”
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As for his own team, Ricciardo admits Red Bull’s opportunities are limited as they continue to sit frustratingly close but not close enough.
“I still don’t think we’ve got the real pace every weekend to convince ourselves that we can be there [in the title fight],” said the China and Monaco race winner.
“I guess Max and myself probably take too many points away from each other – Lewis and Seb are doing all the winning there [at Mercedes and Ferrari].
“We are good enough to win more races. We need to find a little bit to be there on more tracks,” he stated
“Hopefully the ones we expect to be quick on, we are. If we come fifth and sixth in Budapest, we’re probably going to be pretty pissed off.”