German Nico Rosberg expects it to be difficult to convert his pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix into a win on Sunday.
The German took his first pole for more than a year but said tyre degradation in the heat would be a problem.
“Outright quickest in qualifying, that’s really cool,” said Rosberg, who starts ahead of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
“But we have to be careful because it’s going to be a tough race. Rear tyre degradation will be a major issue.”
Mercedes had much more severe degradation than their main rivals Ferrari, Red Bull and Lotus during their race simulation runs on Friday and were also considerably slower.
However, Rosberg said they had improved the car overnight before qualifying.
“We saw in China that we were struggling a little bit more in the race,” Rosberg said, “and tomorrow is going to be difficult for us.” – bbc
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