Lewis Hamilton believes Max Verstappen’s narrow advantage was genuine during Friday practice at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver finished just under 0.1s ahead of the six-time world champion in the second session at Spa-Francorchamps, with Daniel Ricciardo able to put his Renault in between the two drivers.
That order did appear unrepresentative though, with Mercedes down on top speed on the straights as well as Hamilton making a mistake at the final chicane on his best lap.
Even so, that didn’t stop the Briton from suggesting the pecking order might have been shaken up.
“I think the Red Bulls are just a little bit quicker at the moment, but even Racing Point I think is right with us, then also Daniel Ricciardo and the Renaults are very close,” Hamilton said.
“That makes it exciting. We’ve got some work to do, that’s for sure, to dial in the car a bit more, but it doesn’t feel bad at all.
“The field is going to get closer as we continue to develop, the whole of F1 develops and it’s already showing that this weekend, we seem to be so close with everyone, and we’ve got to understand why.
“Whether they’ve taken a step or we’ve taken a step back, or if it’s just a track layout, or downforce level, who knows, we’ll work on that. But I’m excited for an interesting race that’s for sure.”
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Teammate Valtteri Bottas also suggested the gaps will be closer, as he revealed the reason for the somewhat underwhelming Friday.
“I’m sure we’re going to improve a lot, but it depends on the others,” he said on the small gaps seen on Friday.
“The whole day the car has been quite understeery and still, in second practice, lacking a bit of front-end grip here and there.
“I think for me the main lap time gains will come from a stronger front end to be able to get the car into the places it needs to be in the corners.”
Unsurprisingly though, Verstappen sees the idea of Mercedes suddenly being caught as a little too good to be true as he waits for the engines to be turned up on Saturday.
“I personally think they [Mercedes] are still struggling a bit with the balance,” he commented. ” But I expect them to be stronger tomorrow. You can see already on the long runs they are already very competitive.
“I’m not expecting to fight for pole position, but if we can be a bit closer that would be good.”
At the same time though, the Red Bull driver does still room for improvement with the RB16.
“A racing car is never perfect so you always try to find things in the car where you can improve so we will look into that, also with tyre prep and everything,” Max noted.
“It’s early days but from our side, it is a good start. There are still some things to work on for tomorrow, of course, but overall I’m pretty happy.”
