Hamilton plays down Ferrari threat

World champion Lewis Hamilton has said that he is not concerned by the pace of Ferrari at the opening winter test.

The Italian side topped the timesheets on three of the four days, and Sebastian Vettel’s time on Monday caused quite a stir.

However, Hamilton has played down their threat and believes that his own team have had a strong week.

He told Sky Sports: “You always want more laps, but the reliability has been pretty special this week. It’s been a surprise. The car feels very similar to last year and it is difficult to pick up any differences.”

Of Ferrari he said: “I’m sure they are on different fuel loads to the others and doing short runs. My engineer told me that they were on qualy-style attacking runs which we were not.”

The Mercedes car looks the class of the field so far, and little is expected to change from last year when Hamilton battled with Nico Rosberg for the crown.

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