Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Hamilton expecting close qualifying with Ferrari

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Lewis Hamilton is expecting Ferrari to be able to push Mercedes close in qualifying for the British Grand Prix.

Both Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg complained of difficulties with the balance of their cars during Friday practice, despite Rosberg topping both sessions. Hamilton was fourth in FP2 - behind Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel - and he admits Ferrari could be a threat in qualifying.

"I would assume so yes," Hamilton said when asked if qualifying will be close. "The car wasn’t feeling bad today so it’s going to be close, the Ferraris look like they should be close so it should be a good race."

And Hamilton feels there is more to come from Mercedes in terms of race pace, with the team usually running conservatively during practice.

“Not the easiest of days but it’s generally been OK. The long run pace was not so great, we definitely have decent pace we’ve just got a bit of work to do on the setup but otherwise we’re good.”

Asked how much lap time he still can find himself, Hamilton replied: “Hopefully there’s a lot, because if not then we’re in trouble!”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.