Briatore: Ferrari now a match for Mercedes in title battle

Former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore says that Ferrari is now on an even footing with Mercedes in the 2018 Formula 1 world championship.

"This Ferrari is better than the last," he told Italy's Rai radio this week. "I would say that it is on par with the Mercedes.

"We will finally see a good championship with two teams having a 50 per cent chance to win the races," He added.

Briatore was speaking after Sebastian Vettel claimed victory in the first two races of the season. The last time a driver won both of the opening races didn't then go on to win the championship was in 1882.

But Briatore wasn't especially confident that Ferrari would sweep to victory this season, despite their flying start.

"Australia is not typical," he pointed out. "Bahrain is more indicative. And there, Ferrari did a great race.

"They changed strategy at the right time. Vettel drove in an incredible way at the end with his tyres like that.

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"[But] had Hamilton been behind in Bottas' place it would have been different," he warned.

Lewis Hamilton had started from ninth place due to a gearbox penalty. Valtteri Bottas lined up on the grid in third place but was unable to find his way past Vettel in the closing laps.

Briatore is also concerned whether Ferrari will be able to keep their campaign going for a full season. The team started off strongly in 2017 but then faltered after the summer break.

"Ferrari is very competitive [at the moment]," he said. "Now it will be down to development."

Former Ferrari driver Jean Alesi suggested that the team might finally have found the level of maturity and focus required to win the title.

"I was there [in Bahrain] and I saw so much professionalism," he told RMC. "Before when they won a race there was great euphoria. But in Sakhir I noticed a lot of concentration."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.