Ferrari advantage detailed in push to beat Mercedes and Red Bull in critical F1 battle

Former F1 team principal Guenther Steiner believes Ferrari's driver line-up will aid the team's push to finish second in the constructors' championship.

The Italian squad currently sits one point ahead of Mercedes in the constructors' table, while Red Bull is just 10 points away from leapfrogging both.

Charles Leclerc's strong drive to second place at the Mexico City Grand Prix helped Ferrari re-take the runner-up spot in the standings, a position it is seeking to hold onto in the final four rounds of the year.

Steiner believes Ferrari's robust line-up of Leclerc and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton will make the difference in the close fight.

“I think Ferrari - you know why? Because they have the best driver pairing,” Steiner told the Red Flags podcast when asked who he believes will finish second.

“Mercedes has got a good pairing, but [with] a rookie. We can't be unfair to Kimi [Antonelli], but he's a rookie in the end.

“Red Bull, normally, only one guy scores.”

Elsewhere in the championship table, a close battle has formed between sixth and ninth, with four teams separated by just 12 points.

Haas injected itself into the battle with a strong double-points finish in Mexico last Sunday, including fourth place for Oliver Bearman. 

Steiner believes that the particular fight is much more difficult to predict.

“You just need to have one lucky race,” he said. “Not even lucky, just to execute a good race, like Ollie did in Mexico and you're on top of them.

“But it could be anybody. I wouldn't take the form of Mexico for the rest of the races. 

“Mexico is an outlier because of the altitude. Aston Martin is struggling, but then they go to some race tracks, where they score shitloads of points in one race again. 

“That came out of the blue [in Singapore]. Nobody understood why. It's so up and down.

“Racing Bulls seem to be pretty solid in sixth but they cannot get anything together at the moment.”