Quote Originally Posted by Hawkmoon View Post
If I had to bet I'd place money on Mercedes resuming command in China. The problem is that Ferrari were less than a tenth off pole in the wet and then won the race in the heat. Two very different sets of conditions. I haven't seen Mercedes allude to it but did they compromise their race setup in order to cover potential wet weather? That would explain why the Ferrari, possibly setup for the dry, was so competitive in the race. But wouldn't that have compromised their qualifying pace?

I think it's probably safest to say that a combination of Vettel really liking Sepang, the F15T being gentle on it's tyres and Mercedes getting their strategy wrong led to the Scuderia pinching a win. As happy as that makes me I'll take it as a bonus in what looked like it could have been another win-less season.
I think you're underestimating the leap forward that Ferrari have taken here over the winter. Even if you look at the times they were doing in Australia after they cleared the Williams, they were very comparable to Mercedes. Ferrari themselves said that they would have been 15-20 seconds up the road from where they were had they not been stuck behind the Williams. There isn't much difference between wet and dry set up nowadays anyway.

As for qualifying, Vettel's laptime was set on a much dryer track than Hamilton's lap. Hamilton's lap really was something else for the time it was on. He would easily have improved on that had Nico not blocked him on his second attempt. He didn't pull it together then for his final run

A clearer picture probably won't present itself for another couple of races but I am not too convinced that Mercedes have a huge advantage. They may have an advantage in qualifying but certainly not as much in race trim.