Vettel: Mercedes still the favourite in Bahrain

Sebastian Vettel claims that Mercedes remains the favourite entering this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, despite Ferrari looking quite frisky in the 2016 F1 season opener.

The Scuderia came close to winning in Melbourne after Vettel made a tremendous start to overtake Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg by the first corner. But an aggressive tyre strategy eventually forced the German to do an extra pit stop compared to both Silver Arrows.

Although he believes Bahrain International Circuit will suit his SF16-H even better, Vettel still expects Mercedes to be one step ahead of the competition in Sakhir

“Last year we saw that Australia wasn’t our strongest race and I think this year we were more competitive,” the four-time world champion said. “That’s natural because I think we are in better shape this year than we were last year, so for this race last year we were in quite good shape and you could say that we will be even a bit closer again.

“It’s difficult to predict, but we should be a bit more competitive, but how competitive we will see. The favourite is not us unfortunately, but we are working very hard to change that. After the performance we saw in Australia in both qualifying and the race, the favourites are Mercedes.”

One thing that will not change between Australia and Bahrain is the much-maligned elimination-style qualifying format. Vettel said in the aftermath of the Melbourne fiasco that drivers had predicted such failure would happen. Asked whether he was surprised to see the knockout system return after the early backlash, the 28-year-old replied:

“Yes. Let’s put it this way, if you sell ice cream and you sell vanilla ice cream and everybody that comes to your shop is asking for chocolate ice cream and the next day you open you sell everybody expects you to sell chocolate ice cream but instead you decided to keep selling vanilla ice cream.

“Usually you do what your clients would like you to do and you are not really doing your job if you do the exact opposite. It’s something we can’t be proud of.

“I think I am as disappointed as everyone I know that we didn’t go back.”

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