Ferrari has set off “alarm bells” at triple back-to-back world champions Mercedes.<\/p>\n
That is the admission of Niki Lauda, the F1 legend and Mercedes team chairman and co-owner.<\/p>\n
Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton traded victories in Melbourne and China, but it was Vettel’s win last weekend in Bahrain that has Mercedes worried, Lauda admits.<\/p>\n
“The alarm bells are ringing with us,” he told Osterreich newspaper.<\/p>\n
“Those who win in Bahrain have a certain buffer for the next three races,” Lauda added.<\/p>\n
Indeed, both Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas admitted in Bahrain that the main problem with the 2017 car is the new Pirelli tyres, particularly in hotter weather.<\/p>\n
But others think Ferrari has simply given quadruple world champion Vettel a tantalising sniff at a fifth title.<\/p>\n
“The Vettel factor can decide the world championship this year,” Vettel’s first F1 boss Gerhard Berger told Sport Bild.<\/p>\n
The former F1 driver admitted he is surprised with Ferrari’s pace so far in 2017.<\/p>\n
“I would have lost every bet before the season,” Berger smiled, “because I doubted that Ferrari would really beat Mercedes.”<\/p>\n
Another of Vettel’s former chiefs, Dr Helmut Marko, agrees: “Sebastian is at one with his car.<\/p>\n
“He is constantly on the limit, not making the smallest mistake and always knowing what to do. This is pure driving pleasure for him.<\/p>\n
“Like this, Vettel is very hard to beat — especially when Mercedes is making mistakes,” the Red Bull official added.<\/p>\n
Finally, an unnamed current F1 driver also tipped Vettel to emerge with spoils at the end of a long head-to-head with Mercedes’ Hamilton in 2017.<\/p>\n
“Hamilton lacks the bite,” he said. “You can only rely on talent alone when you have a car that is a second faster. Three tenths per lap is not enough to beat a Vettel.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ferrari has set off “alarm bells” at triple back-to-back world champions Mercedes. That is the admission of Niki Lauda, the F1 legend and Mercedes team chairman and co-owner. Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton traded victories in Melbourne and China, but it was Vettel’s win last weekend in Bahrain that has Mercedes worried, Lauda admits. “The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[1628,5262,93,5340,258,154,598,5107,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34599,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598\/revisions\/34599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}