Toto Wolff's early championship prediction could leave Lewis Hamilton fans concerned

Toto Wolff has said that, as things stand, it’s a ‘very long shot’ that Mercedes will be in the championship races this year – though he admits it is quite early to be making concrete predictions on such matters.

The first Formula 1 race of the new season took place over the weekend as Ferrari earned a one-two finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

It was an impressive performance from the Scuderia, with them able to seal the top two spots after Red Bull suffered a rare double retirement.

Mercedes, meanwhile, picked up the pieces to finish 3rd and 4th, though it was clear that they are the third-quickest team at best right now.

And, that said, Wolff believes that it could be a long shot that they see themselves winning the Constructors’ and the Drivers’ championships this season:

“It’s too early to really look at the championship as it stands,” Wolff said post-Bahrain.

“If you look at the pecking order today it seems like a very long shot to even think about being in 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 and at the moment it’s singular events because realistically when you’re third on the road you can’t think about winning.”

This won’t exactly be music to the ears of Lewis Hamilton’s fans, nor George Russell’s for that matter, but Mercedes do at least have time and the capability to get to a more competitive level.

That will be the aim in the coming weeks and races, then, and in the meantime, they will be looking to produce more damage limitation performances as they did at the weekend, where they picked up more points than they perhaps would have expected.