Lewis Hamilton has said that Red Bull have taken over as the main challengers to Mercedes for this year's championships, and that he remains wary about the threat they pose to his own hopes of a third consecutive world title.
"Red Bull is definitely our closest competitor," Hamilton confirmed.
"Daniel is performing really well and so is Max, and it’s not just because of them it’s because they’ve got a great team," he pointed out.
"They’ve got a very, very strong team. I think Red Bull have definitely picked up with their engine performance but also they’ve got great downforce.
"I don’t know why they’ve closed up a little bit more [in Germany] than others but they’re definitely looking incredibly strong.
"Ferrari looked strong at one point during the weekend and then they seemed to fade off more so in the race."
Hamilton is currently 19 points ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg, but he's acutely aware that he will have to sacrifice grid position in at least one upcoming race in order to restock his supply of engine components after a string of early season failures.
With Red Bull now looking much more competitive in race pace, they could become a key obstacle to Hamilton's hopes of being able to race back to the front - even at a circuit like Spa where overtaking is possible, and where the Mercedes engine performance should give him the edge.
"I’m conscious that there will be one race that I’m further behind that I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to regain. I don’t know the damage limitation will be, I don’t know how far I’m going to be able to get up.
"Now the Red Bulls have picked their pace up it might be hard to get past them, so it might be hard even to get into the top five."
If that were the case then not only would that allow Red Bull to close the gap in the points, but also if Rosberg were to win the same race then Hamilton's lead in the championship would be effectively wiped out at a stroke.
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