It might be two race wins out of two for Mercedes but two of the top three teams in F1 believe that Ferrari is the true pace-setters at this early stage in the 2019 season.
In Melbourne, Ferrari lagged behind their competition and is believed to have been covering up a power unit issue which, along with the compromised set up to compensate for said issue, relegated them to third fastest team on that weekend.
Two weeks later in Bahrain and it really should have been a Ferrari one-two with Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel suffering their own issues in the race, and instead, finished third and fifth respectively.
While Mercedes leads the way in the constructors' standings, it is Ferrari who has the upper hand according to their rivals.
"Ferrari were very strong at the weekend," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner explained after the race.
"Mercedes have got lucky with a one-two. Ferrari were the dominant team.
"It looked like they selected another gear. It was enormously impressive, their straight-line performance."
Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas also pointed out Ferrari's advantage, focusing on the Italian team's straight-line speed in particular.
"We’ve seen Ferrari was making all the time on the straights, and in China, there’s a longer straight. So we do need to work hard," he said.
"For sure we are improving the car all the time and we need to review what we can do for the straight lines, but it’s going to be tough.
"But like [Bahrain] showed, if we keep focusing on ourselves and our things, then anything is possible."
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