Lewis Hamilton knows Mercedes have a fight on their hands after fortuitously inheriting victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Briton appeared set for second in Sakhir on Sunday evening but was in the right place to capitalise as long-time race leader Charles Leclerc suffered an ERS failure on his Ferrari engine.
Had it not been for that, the world champion knows the Monegasque would have won comfortably.
“This weekend the Ferraris have been incredible,” Hamilton said post-race. “I had to go and see Charles, he did such a great job, he had done the job to win the race. He deserved to win.
“It’s a great result for the team, considering how hard the race was. But this guy here, [Leclerc] has lots more wins coming in the future.”
As it is, Valtteri Bottas also capitalised on the youngster’s problems to give Mercedes a second 1-2 of the season.
“We were definitely lucky today but we have to take it as it comes,” added the Brit. “I still gave it everything in the race, I pushed as hard as I could.”
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But his final remarks came in the form of wisdom for Leclerc as to how to look back on the Bahrain heartbreak
“It’s always good to look at the glass half-full because today’s got some great points even though they had that problem,” said Hamilton.
“He was an outlier all weekend. Even to his teammate, he was so much faster than his all weekend.
“He’s got so many positives to take from it and we have a lot of work to do to try and keep up with him.”