Lewis Hamilton stormed to the F1 Drivers’ Championship, while Mercedes claimed a fourth straight F1 Constructors’ crown.

Hamilton and his team remain the favourites to win the title again in 2018 even though Ferrari and Red Bull are expected to make grounds on the Silver Arrows.

There is optimism that McLaren will also improve after swapping their Honda engine for Renault power.

But Brawn reckons the lack of major regulation changes heading into next year means Mercedes still hold the upper hand.

"They've got a great group of people, but my slight worry is that they will get even stronger now," Brawn told ESPN.

"They've had a change of senior management and that was in the middle of a regulation change, which is not easy.”

Mercedes won both 2017 titles despite having a temperamental car that Toto Wolff once described as having “gremlins”.

But Brawn thinks the car will be much better in 2018.

“I strongly suspect (problems) are not going to be the case next year,” he said.

“So I just see - unfortunately in many ways - a continuation of the steamroller. Let's hope I'm wrong!"

Brawn revealed last week that the Formula One organisers have been forced to change their 21-race championship schedule to fit into the football World Cup.

The World Cup spans from 14 June to 15 July.

And that means cramming three consecutive races - France, Austria and Britain - into three weekends during the tournament, in order to avoid a clash with the World Cup final.

"The [football] World Cup presented us with a very unusual problem,” Brawn said.

"The final is in the afternoon and it would have been very unfair to have run a race on that weekend.

"We could only solve that by having three races in a row but it's not something we want to repeat in the future. It was an emergency measure."