I would beat Hamilton in same car - Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo believes he would "absolutely" beat Lewis Hamilton in the same car if the pair were team-mates.

Hamilton has only failed to beat a team-mate in F1 on two occasions, being outscored by Jenson Button in 2012 before Nico Rosberg took the drivers' championship this season.

Ricciardo says he will see out his contract with Red Bull despite the vacancy at Mercedes, but when asked if he thinks he could beat Hamilton in a straight fight he told The Age in Australia: "Absolutely.

"It's something that I've been asked a few times - who would you love as a team-mate and all that - and Lewis was one that I was always saying. Obviously I think that he is massively talented and ... I think we would have a good fight, and, yeah, I'd have confidence that I could get the job done."

With Hamilton saying during the FIA Prize Giving in Vienna that he feels Ricciardo is the driver he is most similar to and hopes to spend more time with socially in 2017, the Australian says they get on well but are far from close.

"It's a tough one. He's never had anything bad to say about me. He's always been nice to me, but sure he has days where he likes to keep to himself.

"Some days we'll chat and other days we won't and that's just that. But at the same time, it's, sure I've made a few friends in the sport, but it's not our primary purpose of being here so I'm not expecting him to call me ... and he's not expecting the same from me. It's just how it is, he's got his own things going on ... he's sort of doing his thing really."

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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.