© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says he believes Red Bull could win every race in 2024, but there is a “silver lining”.
The Bahrain Grand Prix was not great for Mercedes, with George Russell finishing in P5 and Lewis Hamilton in P7.
While Mercedes was able to battle Ferrari and McLaren at certain points in the race, Max Verstappen was out in the distance.
“I think Max was not in a different league but in a different galaxy,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said afterwards.
“The performance was extraordinary. But everybody else, we saw the differences between the Ferraris and I believe that the group of Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes were probably in a similar ballpark.
“We just need to look at ourselves, get on top of our problems and if we are able to manage our race weekend better, we will be racing those guys.”
Asked whether he thinks Red Bull could win every race in 2024, Toto said:
“Unfortunately yes. You need to acknowledge his performance levels, they are very strong.”
It has to be noted that Mercedes did not have a perfect race, as they experienced issues with their engine.
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“For us testing was pretty good and the performances on Thursday and Friday were encouraging. The car was stable and good and the drivers liked it.
“Start went fine and then unfortunately we had to start cooling the engine more than we expected. We don’t understand yet where that came from.
“That was unexpected and then from then on when you have to switch 0.3-0.4 secs of power-unit performance off and have to lift and coast.
“It was all together 0.5-0.6 secs that we couldn’t take from what their car had in it and therefore it wasn’t great fun.”
In the end, Wolff believes Mercedes could still get closer to the Red Bulls later in the season.
“In qualifying we were pretty close together. That was good and I believe our performance was masked by our problems.
“Perez is 20 seconds behind his team-mate, so we have hope. That is maybe the silver lining I can see.
“But it is very thin and far away and I almost can’t see that far,” the Austrian concluded.
