Anthony Davidson believes Ferrari have closed on Mercedes

Anthony Davidson believes Ferrari have made “huge inroads” into the Mercedes’ advantage, but predicts the Silver Arrows will “bounce back” in China.

Sebastian Vettel’s maiden win for Ferrari at the Malaysia Grand Prix ended Mercedes’ run of victories which stretched back to Monza last September.

“I am sure they are going to be bouncing back at the next race,” said the Sky F1 pundit said of Mercedes.

“They are clearly licking their wounds after Malaysia, but it is a very unique track and set of conditions that face you there and I think perhaps when we get to a more traditional event – as in weather conditions and track layout that challenges the tyres in a different way – we might see it return back to status quo.

“But one thing for sure is that Ferrari have made huge inroads into reducing the gap to the champions and who knows, this could be the start of a season long title fight.”

After Melbourne failed to deliver a thrilling start to the new season, Davidson believes F1 was “back to its best” with an engrossing race at Sepang.

“It was great for the sport to see a real competitor and some taking the fight to Mercedes like Ferrari – and what a great brand to do it,” he added.

“It was so good for the sport and it was great to see Vettel, having switched teams from Red Bull to Ferrari, taking the victory in Malaysia.

“It was F1 back to its best and as a fan and a pundit I was really happy that F1 put itself in a good light again after Melbourne which, honestly speaking, wasn’t F1’s finest moment. But every race is different and I think the general public have to appreciate that.

“Unfortunately Melbourne is the start of the season and all eyes are on that race and it wasn’t the most exciting of races, we had multiple cars drop out and it looked a bit sorry for itself.

“But Malaysia, second race in, it was a massive turnaround and once again a lesson not to judge a book by its cover and F1 was back to its very best.”

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Ferrari’s ability to look after their tyres meant they were able to make two stops compared to Mercedes’ three and even then, the Silver Arrows drivers still reported fading rubber over the radio.

“It was a big concern for them during the days of the blown floor don’t forget, tyre-wear was always high on the agenda at Mercedes and we used to see them struggle more in the race than they did on outright qualifying pace compared to the likes of Red Bull,” said Davidson.

“But Malaysia has always been so hard on the tyres, you have those long progressive corners that tighten up as you’re braking, in that extreme heat it really pushes the tyres beyond their limits.

“You only have to look back at last year’s results to see how close the opposition were relatively to Mercedes compared to the rest of the season and it looked like the anomaly. Although they won, they were definitely closer to their opposition than they were in places like Bahrain, Barcelona and all the rest of the races.

“With Nico they had a pretty dominant win in Melbourne and then they went to Malaysia and they had someone in their mirrors pretty much the whole race, albeit a couple of seconds down the road. So it didn’t seem even back then in their most dominant fashion like their strongest circuit, so it should be no surprise that the likes of Ferrari or someone kind on their tyres could be close or even topple them on that track. So let’s see where we are at the next race in terms of general competition at the sharp end of F1. I will be fascinated to see how it turns out.”