Lewis Hamilton has warned that he expects Ferrari to be very strong at the next round of the Formula One world championship in Bahrain. Hamilton made his remarks after Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel won the opening race of the season in Australia. He said that although his Mercedes car appeared to be the quicker, Ferrari’s form in Melbourne proved how strong their car is too.

Vettel won the race after taking the lead through a pit stop under the virtual safety car, although Hamilton had led the field from pole. The German stressed afterwards that he believed he had been lucky in how the pit stop played out and that in pace terms Hamilton had the advantage.

Hamilton, who had led from Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen for the first 20 laps of the race, said he believed they would be a real threat in Bahrain on 8 April.

“Their performance is better than it looked,” he said. “Ferrari are going to be quick on the straights. They are going to be rapid at the next race, they are going to be good in Bahrain. They are always good on hot circuits – even though it is a night race it is tough on the tyres.”

Vettel now leads the title race by seven points and won in Bahrain last season, when the race was third race of the year, after proving very quick at the Sakhir circuit and pursuing a successful aggressive strategy.



Hamilton’s team admitted they believed a software error meant he was not warned that he needed to eke out a bigger gap to cover off a potential stop under the VSC by Vettel, but Hamilton was insistent that Ferrari were a real challenge regardless of the error.

“Everyone’s talking about how much quicker we are but they were quick in the first stint,” he said. “It was not easy to pull away from Kimi.” Hamilton also pointed out how important it is going to be that his team-mate Valtteri Bottas is alongside him at the front this season. Bottas crashed in qualifying and could play no part at the sharp end in Melbourne after he started from 15th on the grid.

‘On Sunday it was one against two and that’s not easy to fight against,” Hamilton said. “But Valtteri will be working very hard to ensure he is there and fighting for wins. Sunday showed how important it is to have two cars there, especially with Red Bull up there and Kimi driving so well.”

Raikkonen finished third in the race and looked more comfortable in the car than he had last season when he turned in some indifferent performances because he could not get the feel of the Ferrari to his liking.

Hamilton, however, remained optimistic that he and the team would move on despite the dropped points. “It feels like a dark cloud but it is a positive result,” he said. “We still have a great car, we are still word champions. With a couple of adjustments we can win the next race.”

Gunther Steiner, the Haas team principal, blamed a lack of pit stop of practice on the two failures that cost his team potentially their best combined result in F1. Both Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen had to retire within a lap of one another due to wheels not being attached properly at pitstops. Both drivers were running in the top six at the time.

“This weekend was very tense for us, we didn’t have a lot of spares, so we didn’t do a lot of pit stop practice, and that could be one of the reasons,” said Steiner.

“It was just a bad pit stop. On the wheel gun we had the same guys as last year, which never missed it, so it is one of these things. We need to work harder on it, more practice.”