Formula One news

Ferrari is Istanbul favourite - Haug

Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug says Ferrari is the clear favourite for next weekend's Turkish Grand Prix at the Istanbul Park circuit, which hasn't been overly kind to McLaren in recent years.

"We didn't really shine here in the past, and also this time we are not the current benchmark," Haug said. "The team wants to score as many points as possible, but after three consecutive wins Ferrari obviously arrive here as the favourites."

"Barcelona as the first Grand Prix of the European season and, with its challenging track layout, is definitely a yardstick for the following races," he added. "In qualifying, we missed pole position by less than three tenths of a second; however, we carried a little more fuel and therefore more weight. Anyway, even with the same fuel load we wouldn't have been fast enough to beat Ferrari."

"Since winning the season opener in Melbourne, our car has improved gradually and has become significantly faster," Haug went on. "Unfortunately, we didn't score all possible points, neither in Melbourne, Malaysia, Bahrain or Barcelona, mostly due to self-induced mistakes and this is the reason for the gap to the top of the rankings, after Ferrari had scored only one point in Melbourne. Our aim is to improve further over the next few races, however it is possible the Turkish Grand Prix might be a challenging race for the team."

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