Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari potentially holds a half second advantage over Mercedes as teams undertake final preparations prior to the opening round of 2019.
Ferrari has set the quickest times during Formula 1 pre-season testing this year, with Sebastian Vettel’s Friday morning time of 1:16.221 just 0.010s better than team-mate Charles Leclerc’s Thursday benchmark.
Valtteri Bottas put in Mercedes’ best effort on Friday morning, albeit finishing 0.340s behind Mercedes, a day after emphasising his view that Ferrari currently holds an advantage.
Speaking during his press briefing on Friday, Hamilton commented: "Ferrari are currently fastest," and when asked to suggest a gap, quipped: "I think it is potentially half a second. Something like that potentially.
"We will be analysing a lot from this test and there will be some mods that we will try to implement for the race, but there is obviously not a lot of time.
"But over the next week we will try to gain another tenth at least in our understanding of the car. The car is old now and worn and torn, so we will have new components and all of that stuff will come along.
"It will be interesting. We really won’t know, because everyone will have different power modes and fuel usage, and you don’t know what everyone is doing.
"So Melbourne will be the first time you get a sight of it and then it will be a good four races before you know just where you stand.”
Hamilton also dismissed suggestions that Mercedes only has to worry about Ferrari, pointing to the stronger performances displayed by other teams.
"I think it is the three teams, but also the teams at the back have closed up as far as I’m aware," he said of the title fight.
"The whole pack has closed up, I don’t know which team is fourth currently, but they are a lot closer than they were before.
"There was like a second gap before but now they are within half a second or maybe less, which is awesome.
"So depending on how their development is during the year and whether they have the capacity to develop as quickly as the top three teams will be the question, but it will be exciting.
"Maybe we will some races where Renault or the Force India [ed: Racing Point] will be a lot higher than they were in the past."
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