Lewis Hamilton is refusing to consider Ferrari’s pace in Australia as a realistic representation of the year to come.
Having started the weekend as favourites, the Scuderia ended as the third-best team in Melbourne, with Mercedes leading all sessions and Max Verstappen moving up onto the podium in the race.
But the world champion thinks it would be a mistake to now under-estimate Ferrari going forward.
“No one was expecting to have a gap like that when we came into the weekend,” he told PA.
“What I was shown and led to believe was that, from the analysis we were given, that they were ahead and obviously that wasn’t the case during this weekend.
“I don’t know what their problem was but I am sure they will come back strongly in the next races, so we have to stay on our toes.”
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Echoing that sentiment is his Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff, who predicts a much closer battle at the next Grand Prix in Bahrain.
“For sure Ferrari didn’t meet their expectations [in Australia],” he said. “But I think it’s tricky to find the sweet spot of these new cars.
“In a race weekend where you basically have two days to find the right set-up, I think they took a wrong junction. I don’t think there is a big performance problem.
“But Bahrain is a completely different ball game, with a very rough surface and very hot, and I think we could see quite some variances in terms of the performance level of the teams.
“Coming to Melbourne, [it was] a little bit of a surprise the advantage we had, and a little bit of a surprise at the non-pace Ferrari had,” he added.
“And probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.