"We're lacking a bit of straight-line speed," says Mercedes boss Wolff. "It's going to be very tricky to defend against Ferrari"
Tuesday 4 December 2018 16:19, UK
Mercedes fear Lewis Hamilton will struggle to defend against the Ferraris at the US GP, claiming their rivals have a straight-line speed advantage.
Though Hamilton secured an impressive pole in Austin to put himself in the perfect position to clinch his fifth world title, Ferrari were a much-improved force in qualifying with both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen less than a tenth of a second behind the Englishman.
Hamilton beats Ferraris to pole
Raikkonen will join Hamilton on the front row in Sunday's race, while Vettel, who Hamilton must outscore by eight points to take the championship, will start fifth due to his three-place grid penalty.
Toto Wolff is worried that Ferrari may have the quicker engine this weekend.
"It's so close between the top three," the Mercedes boss told Sky F1. "I'm happy today but my thinking already goes to tomorrow.
"We're lacking a bit of straight-line speed, it's going to be very tricky to defend against Ferrari. That's my worry."
Mercedes and Hamilton have won the last four races to march towards the title, but Wolff insisted: "You cannot write [Ferrari] off.
"It was always very close the whole season, and it's going to continue until the end of the season."
Raikkonen will be starting the race on the ultrasoft tyre as opposed to Hamilton on the supersofts, which leaves Mercedes vulnerable.
Ferrari's surge in performance was also a welcome boost for Vettel, who missed out on pole to Hamilton by just six hundredths of a second.
"After the weeks we had I'm pretty pleased we are back in range," said the German.
"Today has been surprisingly close, I don't think we expected it to be that close."
