Listen to this article The German car manufacturer endured a challenging season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, with its W13 no match for Ferrari and Red Bull around the Sakhir track. But as well as struggling to match its rivals in the high-speed corners, the Mercedes was well down in the speed traps too. And, with Mercedes’ customer teams all battling towards the back in the race, it prompted some speculation about Ferrari and Honda having overtaken the German car manufacturer in horsepower terms. Asked by Motorsport.com about where he thinks the Mercedes engine stacked up, team boss Toto Wolff felt it too early to make a firm judgement because of the wing solution that was being run. “We need to analyse the drag levels first before we really make a judgement of whether we’re lacking power,” said Wolff. “I don’t think that there’s big differences between the power units but clearly Ferrari made a big step forward. “Last year they weren’t totally competitive and, if you look again at the singular event in Bahrain, it looks like they’ve outperformed everyone else. …

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