Wolff concedes Mercedes "can't think about winning" despite Hamilton podium

Toto Wolff has conceded Mercedes "can't think about winning" after falling almost a second-per-lap off the pace of race winner Charles Leclerc in the F1 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton may have stood on the podium on Sunday but it was not lost on Wolff that this result was only achieved due to the misfortune of Red Bull after both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez retired from the top four in the closing laps.

Open in his opinion that Mercedes has the third-fastest car, team principal Wolff dismissed comments that the 27-points scored could provide a launchpad for a championship challenge.

“It’s too early to really look at the championship," said Wolff.

"As it stands, if you look at the pecking order today, it seems a very long shot to even think about being in contention for any of the championships.

“But if I look at it as a single race weekend, we probably scored the maximum points that we could have and we need to take it from there.

“Every single weekend counts and at the moment it is singular events because, realistically, when you are third on the road you can’t think about winning.”

Mercedes in "no man's land"

Mercedes ran a bizarre strategy in Bahrain with Hamilton running the hard tyres for just 16 laps between lap 11-27.

Explaining the strategy, Wolff added: "In a way, it was a new situation for all of us because we were somewhere in a no man's land between P3-P4 and P6, therefore you can experiment more and I think that the experiment with the hard tyres was worth it."

"It was very different to all the other strategies of the front-runners and obviously didn't work at all so more mileage, more laps, more learning."

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