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Vettel: 'Bahrain will be Merc's race'

MANAMA, Bahrain - Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel is expecting another weekend of Mercedes domination, this time at the 2014 Bahrain Formula 1 GP.

The German driver watched Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton sweep to wins in the first two races of the 2014 season, Australia and Malaysia, and believes the Sakhir circuit will also suit his rivals.

Vettel said: "The track is quite tricky - a lot of straights - so we've got to save quite a lot of fuel compared to Malaysia. Already, in testing and for sure at the first two races, we've seen Mercedes has the strongest package.

"The cars are way quicker than us on the straights so it will be difficult to keep up with them."

CATCHING UP

Mercedes set two of the three quickest times in testing at the Gulf track in early March while Vettel was down in 18th and team mate Daniel Ricciardo 10th. The Red Bull men were respectively two and four seconds slower than the Mercedes pairin that northern winter test.

Vettel retired on Lap 5 in Melbourne but was third in Malaysia. He is, however, confident that Red Bull is making progress after winter and early-season setbacks.

He told formula1.com: "A very positive thing we saw in the first two races was that our car has potential. It is up to us to get the best out of what we have. Generally the cars are still fairly early in their development... there are a lot of things we have improved considering where we were two months back.

"It is still a long way to go until the end of the season. We are making big steps forward andneed to ensure that these steps remain big in the future - bigger than those of our competitors."

Stay with Wheels24 for the 2014 Bahrain GP this weekend.
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