Wolff wants Mercedes "challengers" mindset for title fight

Despite dominating the first outing in Australia, and the whole season in 2018, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has urged his team to keep the "challenger" mindset going into this weekend's second race of the season in Bahrain.

Valtteri Bottas overtook team-mate and pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton at the start of the race in Melbourne, and Bottas dominated the race from then on, with Hamilton finishing behind his colleague.

Ferrari looked like the team to beat coming out of pre-season testing in Barcelona, with the Maranello side having the quickest times, but a disappointing strategical race for the Italians saw them crash home at fourth and fifth.

But despite all the signs pointing towards another dominant year for the world champions, team boss Wolff has demanded his team keep the same "challenger" minset for the rest of the campaign.

"After the Barcelona test, we felt we were the challengers," Wolff explained in his team's preview of this weekend's race in Bahrain. "Whatever the Melbourne result says, our mindset hasn't changed since then. One race doesn't determine the pecking order for the rest of the season.

"We need to extract every bit of performance from our package and keep on working hard to improve the car over the weekend to be competitive. We've had some great racing in recent years in Bahrain, so I'm looking forward to an exciting weekend."