Despite Mercedes' strong pace in the Bahrain Grand Prix, Toto Wolff is wary of making any bold predictions ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which will pose a different challenge for his team.
George Russell delivered another podium for Mercedes in Bahrain, as the eight-time Formula 1 champions' pace meant they were McLaren's closest challengers.
It was not a smooth race for Mercedes, as Russell's W16 developed transponder problems as well as issues with his dash, while his brake-by-wire started to fail towards the end when Lando Norris was chasing him, but the Mercedes driver did well to keep his McLaren counterpart at bay.
"Bahrain was an eventful race," Wolff reflected. "George battled through several failures on his car to take P2 along with his, and the team's, third podium of the season.
"It was a superb drive from him under significant pressure, aided by the calm troubleshooting input from the team. We are hard at work to understand what caused the issues we had in order to avoid a repeat in the future," he added.
In the sister Mercedes, rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli delivered his best qualifying since joining the top flight, but the race did not go his way, through no fault of his.
Bahrain was a learning curve for Antonelli
"For Kimi, Bahrain was an important part of the learning curve," Wolff went on. "He showed through the weekend that he had the pace to challenge for the top-five.
"He found himself out of position on the opening lap though and, as he fought back in the opening two stints, his tyres suffered. Switching to a different strategy, he was then unfortunate with the timing of the Safety Car and our choices didn't give him the chance to fight back to the points.
"It has been easy to forget that Kimi is in the very earliest stages of his F1 career given his performances so far. Bahrain will prove an important milestone in his continued development," the Austrian pointed out.
But now heading into the final race of the first triple header of the 2025 F1 season, Wolff is cautiously optimistic about Mercedes' prospects.
"We now head to Saudi Arabia for the final race in this triple-header," he said. "Although we were encouraged by our performance in Bahrain, Jeddah poses a different challenge.
"We go from a rear-limited track to one that is more front-limited, with several high and medium-speed sections. It would be foolish to try and predict the likely order but we will be aiming to fight for the podium once again," Wolff concluded.
Mercedes are currently second in the F1 constructors' championship, 58 points behind leader McLaren. Russell is fourth in the drivers' standings, while Antonelli is sixth.
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