Wolff explains Mercedes' F1 speed deficit after engine speculation

The German manufacturer ended a difficult start to the campaign in Bahrain, where its W13 challenger was unable to challenge Ferrari and Red Bull for victory. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished third and fourth but only after Red Bull had to retire both its cars.

In addition to the Mercedes works squad’s performance struggles, all six cars from its three customer teams - McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams - made up the last six positions in the final classification at the end of the race in Bahrain.

The poor showing prompted suggestions that Mercedes’ engine has dropped back compared to F1’s other three manufacturer’s, but Wolff stressed the difference can be explained by a difference in drag levels.

“I think we need to analyse the drag levels first before we really make a judgement of whether we we are 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 because last year they weren’t totally competitive. If you look again at the singular event in Bahrain and it looks like they’ve out-performed everyone else.”

Wolff joked that Mercedes would “take a chainsaw and cut the rear wing to bits” for this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in an extreme bid to remove unwanted drag.

Mercedes believes the W13 has inherent performance to unlock but is working to understand the current package in a bid to maximise its potential, rather than developing a host of new aerodynamic parts.

“I think more than then really bringing parts, it's understanding how we can unleash the performance that we believe to be in the car- or that we hope to be in the car,” Wolff explained.

“Before throwing bits at it in terms of performance, this is where I would see it.”

However, Wolff conceded that it is currently hard to envisage Mercedes fighting for the world championship given how it has started the season.

“It’s too early to really look at the championship as it stands,” he said. “If we look at the pecking order today it seems a very long shot to even think about being in the contention for any of the championships.

“But if I look at it as a single race weekend we probably scored the maximum points that we could have, and we need to take it from there, every single weekend counts.

"At the moment it is singular events because realistically, when you’re third on the road, you can’t think about winning it.”