Lewis Hamilton makes Ferrari admission as Mercedes suffer testing problem
LEWIS HAMILTON has admitted he is unsure if Ferrari will have the quickest car this season, despite them dominating the speed clock during testing.
Lewis Hamilton sends 'positive vibes' ahead of F1 season
The Ferrari pair of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc have been impressive during their run-outs in Barcelona.
But Hamilton does not think they will be the team to catch throughout the campaign.
“I’m competing with everyone. I don’t know who’s going to be quickest,” Hamilton said.
“I think you can’t say just Ferrari.”
The Brit reckons Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly may also be frequently challenging at the front of the grid.
“I don’t know where the Red Bulls are,” he added.
“I’m hopeful that there’s going to be more teams involved.
“But who knows what people are going to bring up when we get to the first race.”
Meanwhile, Mercedes had a big problem with Valtteri Bottas’ car on Tuesday as he was restricted to just seven laps.
But the Finn is confident the Silver Arrows will make the relevant improvements for the remainder of the second week of testing.
“Unfortunately, after four days of flawless reliability last week, I spent most of the day waiting as we had an oil pressure issue on my first out-lap and had to change the power unit,” Bottas explained.
“But I'm glad I still got to do a few laps, the team did a really good job to get the car out again.
“It was important to get a bit of a feel for the new aero package.
“My running was obviously very limited, but it seems like we've made improvements.
"We need to review everything in more detail tonight and I'm looking forward to continuing our programme tomorrow morning.”