Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff has said that he doesn’t believe his team will be as dominant next season, and he expects the competition to be tight.

Mercedes have been in supreme form this year, winning 14 races out of the 20 to have taken place, including the first eight races, and although Ferrari and Red Bull have closed the gap in the latter stages of the season, the world champions easily secured their sixth straight constructor’s championship at the Japanese Grand Prix.

But, with regulations to remain the same for next year, Wolff believes that the competition will be closer and he doesn’t believe a single team will be able to win 10 or more races during the season.

“We have always defended the standpoint that by leaving the regulations alone, performance convergence would happen,” commented Wolff in Friday’s press conference.

“At least there’s a high probability that convergence happens rather than throwing the dice and introducing something new and I think we have seen that.

“It’s fair to say that there are three teams capable of winning races today and probably winning championships if things are being put together.”

Although Wolff expects Ferrari and Red Bull to be the main challengers to Mercedes next season, he also pointed out how well McLaren have improved this year and that with that rate of improvement, it is evidence that other teams can close the gap to the top three if regulations remain consistent.

“McLaren has massively caught up, probably the steepest performance slope of all teams and will be there or thereabouts, in my opinion.” added the Mercedes Team Principal.

“I don’t think we are going to see the kind of 10 race wins or 12 race wins per team for next year any more,

“But, obviously we will be trying everything to optimise our weaknesses and continue to perform well.”