Valtteri Bottas says Mercedes is not in a position to be able to match Ferrari’s straight-line speed, following its rival’s display at the last round in Bahrain.
Ferrari held an advantage in both qualifying and the race at Sakhir, with Mercedes estimating that it was losing substantial time along Bahrain’s straights.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff labelled Ferrari’s straight-line speed as “unbelievable”, suggesting it was half a second per lap in qualifying trim, and reckons it is a situation the team has to accept as the norm.
Bottas echoed Wolff’s comments and fears Ferrari will be able to profit from the long full-throttle sections at the next two events in China and Azerbaijan.
“We’ve seen (in Bahrain) Ferrari was making all the time on the straights and in China there’s a longer straight,” he said.
“So we do need to work hard. For sure we are improving the car all the time and we need to review what we can do for the straight lines, but it’s going to be tough.
“At the next two races there are massively long straights and I think here they were making more than 0.4s only in straight lines per lap.
“We can’t find 0.4s like this.
“We need to maybe find some of it in the corners and some of it in the straight line, but it’s early on in the season and still a long way to go, but at least we know what we can still work on.”
Ferrari has yet to triumph at the Chinese Grand Prix in the hybrid era.
