F1 was off to a flying start on Saturday evening, as Max Verstappen guided Red Bull to their first season-opener pole since the 2013 season, with Lewis Hamilton in P2.

Meanwhile, from a Mercedes fan’s perspective, it definitely looked like a disappointing start to the season, handing an early advantage to their championship rivals.

However, that wasn’t really the reaction in the Silver Arrows’ garage. It was instead a sigh of relief, according to the seven-time world champion.

This is a really good step: Lewis Hamilton

During the post-qualifying press conference, rather than being disappointed, Lewis revealed that the Mercedes crew are actually pleased to see the progress they made since the pre-season testing.

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Apparently, Lewis and his team were expecting the gap to be much worse, going into the race weekend. Hence, he expressed his relief that Red Bull are still quite closer.

“Yes. Definitely closer than we expected,” Hamilton said. “I think this is a really good step forward for us coming this weekend. I think we thought it was double the gap that you see today.

“And so, that’s really down to some really fantastic work from the men and women back at the factory.

“So, collectively just one more pulling together,” the 36-year-old continued.

What caused this stir up in Mercedes?

The prime reason behind Mercedes‘s brief downfall had everything to do with F1’s recent tweaks in terms of the downforce. F1 managed to alter the regulations a little bit, which enforced massive rear instability in both Mercedes cars.

Furthermore, Pirelli’s newly designed tires are only making it worse for the Stuttgart outfit, with the lack of grip pushing the cars into much more spins and lock-ups.

Meanwhile, Red Bull managed to get the setup right, and are now very much holding the upper hand in the pursuit for the championship title.

Hence, this ended up reversing the tide. And after all these years of domination, Mercedes are finally playing the catching-up role rather than leading the way.

However, will Red Bull manage to keep Mercedes at bay? Or, will the defending champions find a breakthrough and blitz past the Bulls? Only time will tell.