Wolff: Vettel win the "wake-up call we needed”

Vettel beat the Mercedes duo in a straight fight, opting not to pit under the early safety car and using superior pace to extend an unbeatable advantage after employing a successful two-stop strategy.

After the race there was a summit on the Mercedes pitwall, as they put Lewis Hamilton on a second set of hard tyres in his final stint having run out of the faster mediums after using a set in Q1 yesterday.

"You cannot expect that you're going to win races forever," said Wolff. "Perhaps it's the wake-up call we needed.

"It was a brilliant drive from Sebastian in a very good car. He won the race, he's a championship contender, so we need to concentrate even more. The recovery they have made over the winter has been amazing.

"We've seen some strong long runs from Ferrari on Friday, and what they did on the option tyre was also really good."

Strategy errors

Wolff admitted mistakes were made in terms of race strategy of the Mercedes duo.

"Today's strategy wasn't perfect," he said. "Many things in hindsight we could have decided otherwise, but our car didn't have the pace. It's a wake-up call for us and a fully-deserved win for Ferrari.

"Hopefully all the nonsense about equalisation stops now."

Mercedes advisor Niki Lauda echoed his thoughts.

"Ferrari was better, and I congratulate them," said Lauda. "Vettel and Ferrari did a better job. We have to analyse the whole thing.

"I don't think we could have won the race even with a Ferrari strategy. They were simply better."