Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes' task of fighting Red Bull for the title is "as steep as it can be" ahead of this weekend's round of racing in Sao Paulo.
Mercedes and Red Bull are set to resume their cutthroat battle at Interlagos, and while the Brackley squad still holds a single-point edge in the Constructors' standings, Hamilton now trails championship leader Max Verstappen by 19 points.
The two have traded wins in the past four races, but Red Bull's dominant form last weekend in Mexico City augurs well for the Milton Keynes-based outfit's prospects in Brazil.
Asked on Thursday in Sao Paulo how "steep" was Mercedes' task ahead, Hamilton said: "I would imagine it’s as steep as it can be.
"Their pace was phenomenal in the last race," he added. "They’ve had a strong car all year. They’ve had the strongest car actually, you can tell.
"I think we’ve done as well as we think we could. We’ll definitely be pushing this weekend to see if we can squeeze any more out of the car.
"Last time here they were incredibly strong so we’re anticipating again that they’ll be very hard to beat this weekend, but where there’s a will there’s a way."
Referring to the regulation change that was introduced this year that set back those teams – mainly Mercedes and Aston Martin mainly – running high rake designs, Hamilton said the German outfit had its "wings clipped" by the regs, which ha led to some difficult set-up challenges for its W12.
"What we’ll just try to focus on is getting the car in the right window, which is not easy. It’s not an easy car to set up," said the Briton.
"I think that’s probably similar for everyone. It’s just a bit harder to set up this year. It’s really difficult to explain and to go into in terms of details but it’s just harder to optimise.
"Some weekends it works, some weekends it doesn’t," he added.
"To land on the ground with the simulations in the right place is just a little bit harder this year, but I think it’s similar for others.
"You saw in Austin for example, the Red Bulls were quite far off and then all of a sudden they switched it round.
"Getting the maximum potential out of the car has been hard this year."
There has been some speculation that Mercedes could elect to add a fresh ICE to Hamilton's pool of hardware in Brazil, a move that necessarily imply a five-spot grid penalty for the seven-time world champion.
But Hamilton had no insight or information to offer on the engine front.
"I can’t really comment at the moment, I don’t know," he said. "I don’t think the engines have even arrived this morning.
"So as far as I’m aware, currently my engines are fine. But I’ll find out, obviously, later on. We’ve not even done engineering yet."
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