Mercedes boss Toto Wolff joked he now knows how Red Bull felt at the start of the hybrid era after watching Ferrari pull ahead in Belgium.

The Austrian put the gap to the Italian team at a second on the run from La Source to Les Combes at Spa in qualifying, although that was reduced in the race.

However, even during the 44 laps, as Mercedes enjoyed a large pace advantage in the middle sector, Hamilton often could do very little with it even using DRS.

“Look at Turn 1 and then the following straight, Sebastian can’t be more off the line than he was and he was still able to overtake us," Wolff said, pointing to how the German breezed past Hamilton on the Kemmel Straight on the opening lap.

“I know a little bit now how Red Bull felt in ‘14 and ‘15, when you are on the back foot on the straights.”

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It was reported in the build-up that Mercedes may have turned down their engines as the latest upgrade proved troublesome, leaving Wolff a little concerned.

“We introduced phase three of our power unit and we had two failures on Checo [Perez’s] and Robert [Kubica’s] cars, which are not understood," he explained.

“It didn’t compromise us massively, it did a tiny bit. We were not taking any risks in the race. But it was certainly not a comfortable situation because the failures look to be different and are not analysed yet, and understood.”