Mercedes Motorsport boss Toto Wolff believes it would be “a failure” for the team not to win the F1 world title this year.

As suspected in pre-season testing, Mercedes comfortably have the quickest cars on the evidence of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

After Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position by over three tenths of a second in wet conditions, Nico Rosberg then won the race by almost 27 seconds from McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen.

Rosberg had finished 25 seconds clear of Daniel Ricciardo in his Red Bull, only for the Australian to later be disqualified for a fuel-sensor infringement.

Despite such a setback for Ricciardo on his debut for Red Bull, Wolff has expressed concerns at the Milton Keynes-based team’s rapid rate of a comeback given their miserable form in testing.

“We have a margin performance-wise, but it’s not an awful lot,” said Wolff, with their rivals suggesting they are a second per lap quicker.

“If you look at where Red Bull have come from after very little mileage in testing, that is quite a wake-up call for everybody.

“Look at where they were two or three weeks ago, so we need to be careful, and we haven’t seen Vettel running with a reliable, fast car.

“You would expect him, with his experience, to go even faster so we have to keep on pushing.

“In a regular season you have a two-second development curve, from the beginning to the end of the year. But with these new cars the development curve is going to be even steeper.”

It is why Wolff has again downplayed the favourite’s tag, adding: “We’ve had the first race, we’ve won it and pace-wise we looked okay, but to talk about us being favourites would be over the top.”

But given the Brackley-based marque do have an advantage and have built the best car at present, Wolff feels anything less than overall success would be unacceptable.

Asked whether not winning the championships from this point would be seen as a failure, Wolff replied: “Yes, absolutely.

“I don’t see that we have a big advantage, to be honest, but yes, we have a little bit of a margin and losing that would be something I’d consider as a failure.”