Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff believes Ferrari will be back to their pre-season best at the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend.
The form book was turned on its head in Australia as the defending champions overcame their apparent testing struggles to claim a 1-2 finish, while Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc slipped to fourth and fifth.
Rumours suggest though that answers have been found at Maranello to the lack of pace in Melbourne and in addition, the desert of Sakhir has been a happy venue for Ferrari in recent years.
“Claiming the maximum 44 points race from the first race was a fantastic result, we could not have asked for a better start to the season but the fight has only just begun,” Wolff began, looking ahead to race two.
“Ferrari will try everything they can to hit back and Melbourne showed that Red Bull will have something to say in the fight, too.”
Also Read:
- Vettel predicts a ‘very tight’ 2019 championship between top six drivers
- Hamilton still wary of Ferrari threat despite Melbourne pace
- Ferrari mustn’t ‘overreact’ to poor Melbourne pace, says Domenicali
Indeed, the Austrian believes a three-team battle is on the cards as he brushed off the conclusions from Albert Park.
“After the Barcelona test, we felt that we were the challengers, and whatever the Melbourne result says, our mindset hasn’t changed since then,” Wolff explained.
“One race doesn’t determine the pecking order for the rest of the season. We need to extract every bit of performance from our package and keep on working hard to improve the car over the weekend to be competitive.”