"Yesterday both Ferraris could have won the race", said Marchionne, speaking at a public event in Italy on Monday.

"On paper the Ferrari is the fastest vehicle, followed by the Red Bull and then us", the Austrian had observed after qualifying.

"Benefiting from Ferrari's problems shouldn't hide that they have caught up 30 seconds this race", he said.

Red Bull cannot be discounted, particularly after Verstappen clinched his first victory of the season in Malaysia, and could take points off Mercedes that in turn would help Ferrari's cause.

While we don't want the biblical rain that washed out the 2009 race, enough to create a real challenge for the drivers on-track and spice up the strategy calls - a bit like the early part of the race in Singapore - would be great to see.

Vettel's championship hopes have taken repeated hits over the last month with the German dropping 34 points behind Lewis Hamilton with five races to go.

"We have lost so much pace this weekend.how can a auto that is so fast on many circuits lose so much with a tyre that is overheating? Dipping in and out of the window is the fundamental story of 2017 for us", the Austrian added.

The Dutchman has experienced somewhat of a transitional year with Red Bull, with just two podium finishes to his name.

"To beat Mercedes fair and square was beyond our expectation", Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said. The auto had the pace over one lap - Raikkonen missed out on pole position by 0.045s - and in race trim.

"I don't know if it was the same issue, we need to have a look".

"We still have problems with this auto and it was magnified here", Hamilton said.

Hamilton predicted he would have finished third, had Raikkonen started.

Now the teams head to Japan with Wolff conceding all is not well at Mercedes despite leading the way in 2017. We've saved some tyres so that's a positive but it's a very bad day.

"But being here, this is a more fortunate weekend with Ferrari having the issues they had and we just happened to get the setup just OK for qualifying. But that's the best I could really do".

He went into the Malaysian race trailing the Briton by 28 points.

On the days that the W08 EQ Power+ isn't the best auto on track, it'll still maximise its opportunities - as seen by Hamilton's win in Singapore and the podium in Malaysia, behind the Red Bull. But a strong showing at Suzuka would sweep away much of the gloom and doom that has followed the Japanese manufacturer around again this season, and hopefully ring in some optimism for 2018.