Wolff: Sheer power advantage makes Ferrari clear favourites for China

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes Ferrari's "sheer power" advantage makes the Italians favourites for the upcoming race in China.

Ferrari's power advantage was perhaps evident in Bahrain, with Charles Leclerc on course to win the race before an engine failure stopped the 21-year-old from doing just that.

Subsequently, Mercedes have recorded successive one-two finishes in Australia and Bahrain, with Lewis Hamilton winning most recently and Valtteri Bottas on the opening weekend of the 2019 season.

Wolff admitted that Mercedes were lacking when it came to straight-line speed after Ferrari locked out the front row in qualifying in Bahrain.

"I would say if they (Ferrari) are able to maintain those power levels on a power sensitive circuit like Shanghai, they are the favourites clearly, because the lap-time benefit might even be more than in Bahrain," Wolff said to Crash.net.

"It's not drag - it's never one silver bullet or one simple action but the drag levels we have calculated would have been a tenth maybe in difference. It's sheer power. 

"We have seen different power levels in the race (in Bahrain) and also between the cars. So that needs to be digested now. We expected them to be strong in Melbourne after what we've seen in terms of pace in Barcelona testing, so Melbourne was more the surprise than actually Bahrain.

"Bahrain was very strong, straight-line performance is unbelievable. The power they have displayed is unmatched by anybody. There was, I think in qualifying five tenths on the straights only.

"That is really difficult to compete with. So we have to get used to this level of performance in my opinion, and see Melbourne as the outlier."