Bottas: Ferrari's straight-line speed a worry

Valtteri Bottas says Mercedes must work hard if it is to overturn Ferrari’s pace advantage ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix next weekend, citing its straight-line speed as being a big concern.

Bottas comfortably won the opening race of the year in Australia for Mercedes, but the team struggled to match Ferrari for outright pace in Bahrain.

Mercedes was only able to secure a one-two finish after Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel suffered setbacks, leaving it under no illusions about the gap to make up ahead of the next round in China.

Bottas said Ferrari made a “massive gain” in straight-line speed in Bahrain, and conceded that it left him concerned heading to China, where the track has one of the longest straights on the F1 calendar.

“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,” Bottas 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.

“The next two races there are massively long straights, and I think [in Bahrain] they were making more than 0.4s only in straight lines per lap.

“We can’t find 0.4s like this. We need to maybe find some of it in the corners and some of it in the straight line, but it’s early on in the season and still a long way to go.

“But at least we know what we can still work on."