Lewis Hamilton has cast doubts over whether Mercedes can challenge Ferrari on race day for the Chinese Grand Prix after the Italian outfit locked out the front row with a dominant display in qualifying.
Valtteri Bottas, the quicker of the two Mercedes cars on Saturday, was more than half a second behind pole man Sebastian Vettel, whilst Hamilton was almost six-tenths adrift and managed a time only 0.003 seconds quicker than he managed in 2017, when he wound up quickest.
The two Mercedes cars will therefore start on the second row and Hamilton isn't certain they'll be able to fight for the victory on Sunday given Ferrari's top speed advantage, despite the Shanghai circuit offering up plenty of overtaking opportunities.
"It's in the top three of the easier ones [tracks] to overtake at – I think the delta is around a second but the Ferraris are too fast on the straights," Hamilton told Sky Sports.
"It’ll be interesting. It’s a lot hotter tomorrow, so it’ll be a challenge to see if we can keep up with them.
"I don’t know if we can challenge, we’re half a second behind today. Honestly I can’t tell you if we’ll challenge."
Although Mercedes have had strong race pace and were arguably quicker than Ferrari in both Australia and Bahrain – both of which Vettel won – the Briton reckons Ferrari will do the same in China.
"We were quicker [than them] in the last race, but they were able to hold on and they’ll probably do the same tomorrow."
