Wolff: Mercedes not 'talking ourselves down'

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has denied that the Silver Arrows are playing mind games when it speaks highly of Ferrari.

Mercedes has taken four one-two finishes so far in 2019, but has consistently stated that Ferrari looks stronger while playing down its own pace.

Ferrari locked out the front row in Bahrain, but has otherwise lost out to Mercedes in qualifying and the race at the opening four events of the season.

“I’m sitting here and looking like appearing to be  - what can I say? We are not talking ourselves down,” Wolff said in Baku. 

“It is that we see a strong Ferrari on Friday and on Saturday, and I still believe that Charles [Leclerc] was probably the fastest man on track [in Azerbaijan], but like in Bahrain, it didn’t come together.

“You can say now, ‘Yeah, stop saying these things — it’s the fourth one-two in a row’, but it is still very much our mindset.

“We still believe that there are so many things we need to understand better and improve.”

Wolff believes that the efficiency of the Mercedes team granted it the wins, rather than simply utilising its own pace.

"Even in the race [in Azerbaijan] at times [Pierre] Gasly and [Max] Verstappen were the quickest and then it was us again,” he added.

“Then, in the beginning, it was Charles who was flying on the mediums. So I think that what we did in the first races was put all the things together.

“The team didn’t do any mistakes, the strategy calls were right, the drivers didn’t put a foot wrong, and that made us win the first four races. Then when you look at the other side, they had more problems.”