Hamilton sizes up his main rivals for 2018 title

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Lewis Hamilton has given his view on who will be his three main rivals for this year's world title.

The reigning champion picked out three drivers as the biggest threats to retaining his crown this season.

"You look at them all slightly differently," the Mercedes driver said of his rivals. "They all have different characteristics."

He once again tipped his former team mate Fernando Alonso to return to the front now that McLaren has split from Honda.

"Fernando [is the] toughest driver there is," the Briton stated. "His racecraft is mighty.

Hamilton's closest challenger last year was Sebastian Vettel, and he tipped the Ferrari drover to be strong again this year.

"From this year, you could say, 'Give [Seb] more space.' - not in a negative way," he mused.

Hamilton also felt that Red Bull's Max Verstappen would start to really come into his own in 2018.

"Max's racecraft is very impressive," he said. "He's doing wonderful things. But he is going to grow so much over the next 10 years.

Hamilton predicts McLaren revival in 2018

"He is more inexperienced than the other guys," Hamilton cautioned. "Max takes a lot of risks ... you have to give [him] more space.

"I don't think it will be a problem," he continued. "It'll just be freaking tough [to beat him]. Wouldn't that be a fight? Even I'd pay to see that."

Hamilton said that that the differences between them all could be measured in "millimetres".

"We're the four strongest drivers," he insisted. "I really hope we are all in the fight [for the title]."

Among the drivers not mentioned by Hamilton was his own team mate Valtteri Bottas.

Also seemingly out of the running for the title as far as Hamilton was concerned are Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has already warned Hamilton not to underestimate the Australian.

"Lewis would be very foolish to underestimate Daniel," Horner said last month.

"He's a phenomenal driver," he added. "He's absolutely ready for a championship challenge if we can provide him with the tools to do the job."

Hamilton and Ricciardo are both out of contract with their respective teams at the end of 2018. While Mercedes are negotiating flat-out to keep their star driver, Red Bull might be ready to see Ricciardo walk away.

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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.