Something I read elsewhere I was wondering if anyone else could confirm. Someone said that on the grid walk(which I rarely watch) Brundle spoke to Horner about oil burning and he said someone who went from Ferrari to Mercedes(Allison presumably) asked the FIA for some clarification on rules around oil. Saying it was a bit of back and forth, Ferrari complain about the suspension, Mercedes subtly cause the FIA to look more closely at cars over oil burning which screws Ferrari back.
If true then I'm even more certain that Ferrari have lost performance as they can't use oil burning. The thing is the first push for it came from Horner and he accused Mercedes. I think that was just political games, want to hit Ferrari, but don't want the hate from Ferrari fans for going after Ferrari so accuse Mercedes who you don't suspect but their goal was to make the FIA test more thoroughly and catch Ferrari. There was also a rumour I haven't seen confirmed anywhere that in the FIA testing on this in Canada that one of the teams had a 'dubious' result, not failed but not passed and everyone else was fine, so again I suspect that would be Ferrari.
I get the feeling more and more that Merc will dominate the rest of the year now. I think it's kinda clear Ferrari were cheating a bit there and can't get away with it now, but I think Merc also effectively started the season with a hybrid 2016/2017 car, new chassis, new suspension but it looked more like the 2016 car. In, was it Spain, they brought that nearly complete overhaul of the aero, entirely new nose and bargeboard area. I suspect that was their true 2017 car but due to the nose not passing crash testing their major 2017 concept couldn't go ahead without it. So since Spain they've had their full 2017 car. The new car with different setup cost them big in setup in Monaco but the last two races they've absolutely killed it in terms of setup and ultimate performance in qualifying.
So to start the season we've got not final 2017 Merc vs oil burning final 2017 Ferrari, Ferrari seemed to have the lead in pace but lost out on strategy a couple of times leading up to Spain. Monaco, 2017 Merc but difficult setup at difficult track to go in with a new car. Canada, 2017 Merc with a lot of feedback and learned from their mistakes, incredibly fast, Ferrari not a match and Baku, Ferrari lose oil burning and end up over a second off the pace in qualifying.