Vettel’s victories may force Mercedes rethink

Formula One world champions Mercedes have indicated they may increasingly have to favour Lewis Hamilton over new teammate Valtteri Bottas to counter the threat posed by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.

In practice, that is likely to mean the reluctant imposition of more of the so-called “team orders” used in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

“We don’t like that, at all,” team boss Toto Wolff said after Bottas twice obeyed radio instructions to let the faster Hamilton through to chase eventual winner and championship leader Vettel.

“It’s not what we have done in the last couple of years but the situation is different now, so it needs a proper analysis of what it means and where we are.”

Mercedes have never had a designated No 1 driver, and Wolff said the desire was to give both an equal opportunity at the start of the race.

The team won all but two races last season but are no longer dominant.

Vettel has now won two of three races and is seven points clear of Hamilton. Bottas is 23 adrift of his teammate.

Wolff said the situation at Ferrari had to be taken into consideration. “That is the interesting question that we need to analyse and I don’t want to preempt what the consequence will be, or if there will be a consequence,” he added.

The disparity between the current Mercedes pairing is more marked than before, with Bottas yet to win a race and Hamilton surpassed only by Michael Schumacher in the alltime list with 54 victories.

Bahrain was Bottas’s first career pole position, whereas Hamilton has 63 and could sail past Schumacher’s record of 68 later in the year.

Hamilton had been on pole for six races in a row until Bottas broke the sequence in Bahrain on Sunday and Wolff said Mercedes appeared to be still slightly ahead of Ferrari on single lap pace.

“In the race it’s pretty evenly matched I would say. So I think that’s going to be a close one for the next couple of races.”