Toto Wolff: "Ferrari is 16 weeks ahead"

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes that Ferrari's early development on their 2017 car has allowed them to close the gap to Mercedes. Ferrari has struggled to produce a race winning car in recent years, but in 2017 has emerged with a car that is looking to claim both driver and constructor championships.

Wolff thinks that their early development aided them massively: "To our knowledge, Ferrari started development of its car very early -- in December 2015. For us it was only March 2016," Wolff told Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "By then, Ferrari already had more than 50 percent of its resources on the new car. Ferrari has perhaps a 16-week lead, and in that time you can find downforce worth four or five tenths," said Wolff.

The team is denying it, but there are suspicions Kimi Raikkonen was deliberately disadvantaged by Ferrari so that Vettel could win last Sunday at Monaco: "Of course you have to ask that question, even if there was no need for them to do so," former F1 driver Alex Wurz told the Austrian broadcaster ORF. "But obviously the world championship is in the foreground."

Fergal Walsh