Wolff reacts: "We just had a good top speed"

Toto Wolff is very happy with the performance of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. Mercedes almost scored the first one-two of the season but problems with Bottas meant Max Verstappen was able to seize second place. The top speed of Mercedes impressed in Portugal.

"Given our speed on the straights, I think he might have even managed to get past [Verstappen]. The problem was that we had a small glitch in the engine software that we tried to solve. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite happened. That's something we have to fix in our software," Wolff told Sky Sports Germany.

Verstappen complained about the lack of top speed both Saturday and Sunday, but Wolff says that needs to be put into perspective. "We just had a good top speed on the straights. The set-up we chose was good. A little bit at a disadvantage with the downforce and the drag, but fast on the straights. That worked out well."

Mercedes vs Red Bull

Mercedes have always tried to push Red Bull into the favourites role, but after the weekend in Portimao it's hard to keep that up. Still, Wolff is not yet willing to say that the W12 is now faster than Red Bull's car.

"The car was strong yesterday, which is a gratifying development. Today it's difficult to judge, but I think both teams are pretty much on the same page," the Austrian team boss concludes.

In any case, we are already curious to see whether Portimao was an outlier or whether Mercedes has really closed the gap completely.