Since the new engine formula was introduced in 2014, despite back-to-back race wins, far less back-to-back titles, Mercedes has consistently warned of its fear of the threat from its rivals.

Yesterday's Malaysia Grand Prix victory for Max Verstappen marked the 74th race since the new formula was introduced, and of them Ferrari has won 7 (9.4%), Red Bull 6 (8.1%) and the Silver Arrows 61... a massive 82.4%.

Friday, according to Toto Wolff, was the "worst Friday ever", and admittedly his cars were all over the place.

Yet on Saturday, when it mattered, Lewis Hamilton was able to claim the 70th pole of his F1 career.

Courtesy of the various issues suffered by Ferrari over the weekend, it was a case of damage limitation for the Maranello outfit and in particular Sebastian Vettel. And while the German gave a stellar performance, Hamilton's title lead increased to 34 points... with just 5 races remaining.

Despite Hamilton's protestations post-race that it was not worth fighting Verstappen as he was focussing on the bigger picture, the championship, the fact is - ignoring teammate Valtteri Bottas' slump in form - that on the day the Red Bulls appeared to be the better car.

Post-race, it was further doom and gloom from Hamilton and Wolff.

"The car's good obviously in some places and in some others the issues that we have with the car are magnified," said the Briton, "so we do have some big problems with it.

"We struggled with pace, but still, it was good enough to get second. There's still work to do to try and fix it but I think it's a fundamental issue with this year's car, so we've just got to try and work on improving it for next year.

"At circuits like this there are corners that really magnify the issues we have with the car," he added, "so that's something which we struggled with here. Whether or not that will be the same at the next races we go to we will see."

And to summarise...

"A much better weekend that we had anticipated after our Friday," said the three-time champion. "Still, as I said, we've got a lot of work to do with this car so considering the issues we did have with the car, I think this is a good result.

"I think Valtteri obviously seemed to struggle a lot more and I was able to just pull a little bit more out of it, I guess, but these next races are going to be crucial in terms of finding out whether we can iron out some of the creases that we have with the car."

"Benefiting from Ferrari's problems shouldn't hide that they have caught up thirty seconds this race," warned Toto Wolff. "We didn't have the pace to challenge either Red Bull or Ferrari and this is what remains the underlying feeling with all of us. We need to understand why we underperform on certain circuits and in certain ambient conditions.

"We have a capricious car that has a very narrow operating window with the tyres where the tyres generate optimum grip," he added, "and dipping in and out of the window is the fundamental story of 2017 for us.

"I guess there's more problems that come together and cause a lack of performance. One of them is certainly very high ambient temperatures and specific circuit characteristics. There might be some more circuits before the end of the year where we need to understand."

While it would be all too easy to dismiss this as the usual yadda yadda yadda we have come to expect from the Brackley outfit for the last four years, what is interesting is that Red Bull and Ferrari, despite a quite dreadful weekend, both seem to agree... that Mercedes is now beatable… and on a regular basis.

Up until qualifying in Vettel's case, and the start of the race in Raikkonen's, the Ferraris were looking mighty strong. While the ease with which Verstappen dealt with Hamilton showed how much better the Red Bull was, and let's not forget how quickly Bottas was left for dust by both Ricciardo and Vettel.

Could it be that Mercedes is no longer crying wolf?

Check out our Sunday gallery from Sepang, here.