Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says Fe🧸rrari’s “sheer power” advantage makes its chief Formula 1 rival clear favourites for the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix. 

While the reigning world champions have started the 2019 season with back-to-back one-two finishes, Ferrari returned to form in Bahrain and dominated proceedings until a mid-race capitulation꧟ handed an unlikely victory to Lewis Hamilton. 

Sebastian Vettel spun while battling Hamilton over second place and ultimately dropped to fifth, while Charles Leclerc ܫlooked set to claim his maiden grand prix win unti🉐l late engine issues robbed him of what would have been a convincing victory. 

Wolff admitted Mercedes were lacking in straight-line speed after Ferrari locked out the front row of the Sakhir grid in qualifying, before revealing the true extent of the Scuderia’s advantage foll𝓡owing the second round of the campaign. 

“I would say if they [Ferrari] are able to maintain those power levels on a power sensitive circuit like Shanghai, they areℱ the favourites clearly, because the𒅌 lap time benefit might even be more than in Bahrain,” Wolff said. 

“It’s 💙not drag - it’s never one silver bullet or one simple action but the drag levels we have cal🎐culated would have been a tenth maybe in difference. 

“It’s sheer power," he added. "We have seen different power le🌃vels in the race [in Bahrain] and also between the cars. So that needs to be digested now.

“We expected them to be strong in Melbourne after what we’ve seen in terms🗹 of pace in Barcelona testing, so Melbou🌳rne was more the surprise than actually Bahrain. 

“Bahrainﷺ was very strong, straight-line performance is unbelievable. The power they have displayed is unmatched by anybody. There was, I think in qualifying five tenths on the straights only. 

“That𒈔 is really difficult to compete with. So ꦉwe have to get used to this level of performance in my opinion and see Melbourne as the outlier.”

Having dominated the Melbourne season-opener, Valtteri Bottas admitted Mercedes has work to do to catch up to Ferrari’s level of performance in Bahrain and cited its apparent power advantage as a concern. Wolff concurred with his driver and conceded that finding such engine gains will p𒆙rove almost “impossible”. 

“Both [drag and power] are difficult to catch up,♏” Wolff explained. "Because if there was 𓆏really that kind of engine development between Melbourne and Bahrain, that is something that is impossible to catch up, or at least for us. 

“And we need to really understand which role the chassis played in all that. On the chassis it’s a constant development slope th꧟at you are trying to keep as steep as possible but on the power un𓂃it side because the regulations are very mature, the returns get smaller and smaller. 

“We’re speaking about milliseconds gains from one engine upgrade to the next or maybe a tenth or two from one season to the other but big jumps are rather🍸 unusual.”