Hamilton: ‘We can match Red Bull’s pace’

Lewis Hamilton believes he could have matched Red Bull’s single-lap pace in Australia, if he had gone out at a similar time to pole sitter Sebastian Vettel.

When asked if he thought their pace was fightening, after Vettel went over six tenths faster, he replied: “I don’t think they had frightening pace in qualifying.

“I think if I was out at the same time and as late as they had gone out, I think I could have matched their time. So I don’t think it was frightening pace. It was a circuit that was drying up.”

The 28-year-old explained that a lack of focus on set-up in Melbourne was likely the reason for their reduced performance during the race – which is an area they will look at in Malaysia.

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“We did something with the tyres which put the car more into understeer and unfortunately when we made the change to new tyres it went too far the other way.

“So I went from massive understeer to massive oversteer. We just generally struggled with the balance.

“We didn’t spend a lot of Friday setting up the car because we were testing a lot of components – which was perhaps the wrong way to go. This weekend for example we are going to focus on the set-up – we will make sure we do that.”