Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel said he wasn't surprised to see Mercedes looking back to their best this weekend in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Silver Arrows have been getting stronger with each qualifying session in 2018, and finally achieved their first 1-2 lock-out of the year on Saturday. It brings to an end a run of three consecutive pole positions for Vettel.
"We expected Mercedes to be very strong and so they were," he said. "So hats off to them.
"I think it was exceptional that Mercedes were struggling in the last events as much as they were," he added. "You have to admit that in the last two qualifying sessions they lost something.
"If they got that back [this weekend] it doesn’t necessarily mean that they found something - it’s just that they are back to normal.
Vettel certainly didn't think that today's qualifying result indicated anything amiss at Ferrari. "I think we need to admit that they [Mercedes] were just a bit quicker today," he shrugged.
"I don’t think up to today Mercedes understood in China exactly what went wrong," he mused. "For us it was working, and then one event to the other, one day to the other it can be a different picture.
"That’s nothing new, I think we had it for a long time now. That’s how it goes. It’s good if you are on the side that it’s working and not so good if you are on the side that it doesn’t work."
Ferrari had been looking strong in the first two rounds of qualifying, before Mercedes showed their full hand in Q3.
"Overall I think it was a smooth session," Vettel said. "Q1 was pretty good. The car was fine. We didn’t have to do that much.
"The first run in Q3 was not so good, I locked up into the first corner," he noted. "So the first sector was already slow. I tried to get it back and recover but to really fight for pole I knew it was not enough.
"I didn’t get a great feeling on that tyre, on that set [of supersofts]. I asked to go back [to the soft compound] and I think it was the right call, we were very quick.
"The last lap I was happy," Vettel insisted. "I was feeling good until the end, then I looked at the the tower there and I saw my name didn't go the top!
"So not entirely happy," he admitted. "Tomorrow should be an interesting race. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope the people will enjoy it at the track and also at home.
"First focus on the start and then we’ll see. It’s a long race after that," he said. "Even if the start doesn’t go in our favour I think we have a strong car after that to keep fighting."
Vettel's team mate Kimi Raikkonen will start alongside him on the second row, However he sounded distinctly underwhelmed with fourth place on the grid.
“I’m a bit disappointed but it could have been worse," he said. “We were struggling to make the tyres work, it was not the most straightforward qualifying.
"But this is what we've got," he added. "The Mercedes were faster today so we'll see what happens tomorrow."
Asked if he expected the order to be the same in Sunday's race, the disappointed Finn simply shrugged. "I don't know."
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