After struggling on Friday over a second off Sebastian Vettel's pa꧙ce, Mercedes' race pace was no reassurance to team boss Toto Wolff despite seeing his team increase its lead in the Formula 1 world championship.

Despite Lewis Hamilton claiming second place at the Sepang International Circuit, increasing his title lead over Vettel to 34 points, Valtteri Bottas was overtaken by the Ferrari driver 🐼on a charge from the back of the grid and ended 36 seconds behind his team-mate.

Wolff said the relative pace to the Red Bulls, in particular, was a majoꦛr deficit and something which has flagged up concerns attacking the final ꩲfive races of the year.

"If Max would have p𝕴ushed to the end we would have been half a minute down,” Wolff said. "How can a car that is so fas💟t on so many circuits, lose so much with a tyre that is overheating?

“If you look at the real pace today then it would have been P5. And that is worrisome - let's see what happens in Suz𓆉uka, we've got a couple of days of trying to un🌜derstand, to put this completely different plan out."

Asked if the team cou🐻ld be optimistic about🔴 recovering pace in Suzuka, he said, "On paper, that should be the case."

However, the focus for the🍰 team is t🅰o analyse what went wrong in Malaysia, where Mercedes were substantially off the pace in both wet and the dry running.

"I'm just very down, I must say because you cannoಌt just say 'well we've scored more points than Ferrari' - we've lost so much pace🌞 this weekend."