Mercedes warn Ferrari's Canada advantage won't translate to France

French GP

Mercedes warn Ferrari's Canada advantage won't translate to France

Toto Wolff expects the Silver Arrows to be strong.

Matthew Scott

Wednesday 19 June 2019 13:07 Updated: 17:14

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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has warned Ferrari that the straight-line advantage they held at the Canadian Grand prix may not translate to similar success at this weekend' French Grand Prix, despite similarities between the circuits in Montreal and Le Castellet.

The Scuderia's powerful engine in the SF90 helped Sebastian Vettel take pole in Canada, and cross the finish line first, although Lewis Hamilton inherited the victory through a time penalty for the German.

It continued the Silver Arrows' clean sweep of 2019 so far, with Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas sharing the seven victories so far this year five to two.

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Hamilton came close to not starting the race in Canada as a race-morning rebuild was required on his car and Wolff says the panic of that moment will refocus minds in France.

"Canada was something of a wake-up call for us," Wolff said.

"After a run of very good reliability over the opening six races, we experienced a number of problems over the course of the weekend, almost all of which were of our own making - from the problem with the fuel system on Valtteri's car in FP1 to the hydraulic leak on Lewis' car which we had to fix on the morning before the race.

"We were fortunate that those reliability issues were exposed when we still had the chance to solve them, but we know that they could have easily ruined our weekend and it is down to the great skill of our mechanics that they didn't.

"We expect another tough fight in France next weekend. The circuit features some similarities to Montreal and the long straights will present a challenge for us.

"However, unlike Canada, the corner characteristics are spread across a range of speeds, which should play to our advantage.

"We're looking forward to the chance to put a few things right again."