Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton says he is not remotely bothered by the pace displayed by Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel on the penultimate day of pre-season testing.
Vettel posted several lap times in the 1:17s on Pirelli’s new-for-2018 Hypersoft tyres, the fastest of which was a 1:17.182, though his ideal lap time – bringing all three sectors together – was a 1:17.026.
Hamilton’s best time from testing so far is a 1:18.400, which he achieved on Wednesday, albeit on the Ultrasoft compound, with Mercedes opting not to bring any of the Hypersoft tyres.
Hamilton said he “hadn’t seen” Vettel’s lap time, and upon being told of the effort, replied: “I don’t know if that’s a good time or not. I don’t think it’s faster than what we did a couple of days ago.
“I don’t know if it’s a qualifying run, I don’t really know, I don’t really care. It’s testing. I think someone said I was down in 11th today, it doesn’t matter.
“It matters where we are in qualifying, in Q3 in the first race when everyone's on low fuel.
“For example, for us we’ve not been on low fuel yet so I have no idea where the car can go.
“I hope [Vettel’s time is] good, I hope it’s a good, good time so that means that they’re strong and that means we have a race on our hands.”
Hamilton took over from team-mate Valtteri Bottas for the afternoon session, though did not conduct a race simulation, an aspect he is keen to amend on Friday’s final test day.
“Honestly at the moment we are just going out and banging in laps,” he said.
“Of course, I come in and ideally I’d like to change this and change that, and refine the set-up.
“Testing is all about aerodynamic testing and suspension testing. Today we were getting through a bunch of the different tyres to see how they warm a couple of laps and how long the lasted.
“It’s not particularly exciting, testing.
“When I come in the garage, I am in the car doing emails and then they say, let’s go, I give my phone back, and I get out there do my laps, then I come back in and do the same.
“There’s not a lot to learn in that respect.
“I think tomorrow we will hopefully be doing a race distance, as Valtteri did today, which I believe went well.
“In that, it’s more like competition, so that’s where you take it a lot more serious and really try to take a lot more notes because the cars behaving differently between each run, the settings… you might need to change all those little things.”
