After seven years of supremacy and a season of simple dominance, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted on Friday that he expects a “canine battle” with rivals Pink Bull at this weekend’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Austrian crew chief, who has overseen seven consecutive constructors and drivers title doubles, had hoped that pressing enhancements to the crew’s 2021 vehicles would put them on phrases in Friday’s opening follow classes.

However as an alternative it was Pink Bull’s flying Dutchman Max Verstappen who twice topped the instances to show he’s the quickest man forward of Sunday’s opening race.

Defending seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was solely third in scorching, dry and windy circumstances on the Bahrain Worldwide Circuit on Friday, crushed by each Vertstappen and fellow-Briton Lando Norris in a Mercedes-powered McLaren.

“The night time has fallen and the circumstances haven’t come in the direction of us,” stated Wolff, after the floodlit second follow session.

“It’s an actual canine battle. Whenever you overlay the quickest laps and even the lengthy runs, it’s simply so very shut that each kilogram in gas load can have a really huge swing so we don’t actually know.

“We’re undoubtedly nearer right here than we have been in testing, however I wouldn’t know the place to place us versus Pink Bull.”

Hamilton stated Pink Bull had proved their superior velocity and added that he feared the forecast windy circumstances due over the weekend whereas team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who was fifth, stated he discovered his automobile to be “undriveable at instances”.

Mercedes’ fall from clear supremacy to shut contenders adopted a set of rule modifications designed to scale back downforce and make the vehicles marginally slower and safer.

In Mercedes case, the aerodynamic rule modifications which required slicing away a part of the ground of the automobile in entrance of the rear wheels had resulted in an enormous lack of efficiency.