Sebastian Vettel is wary of the rising threat from Mercedes following Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

“I think Mercedes has been very competitive not just Lewis, also Nico [Rosberg] who won two races already this year,” said Vettel in a press conference ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.

“We know they’re very quick in qualifying,” he added. “Hungary, in a way, was the first time they… not really the first time but they had the ability let’s say, to show their speed in the race as well.”

“But really I think since Monaco I think they’ve been competitive in the races. As I said Nico won the race, in Silverstone Lewis was in the lead when he had the tyre failure. Surely the last races they were the most competitive.”

However Vettel is not becoming complacent about other rival teams: “I think Lotus has always been there scoring points with Kimi [Raikkonen], Romain [Grosjean] is fighting is way back.”

“Ferrari I think had a little bit of a low at the moment but still they’ve got good points so I think all of these teams and the drivers you still have to keep them in mind. But for us it’s not that important to pick one particular driver or person or team. We first of all have to get our own stuff sorted and then we’ll see what happens.”

Vettel also said he “didn’t know how realistic it was” that Raikkonen might have joined him at Red Bull next year. “For sure I’m talking with the team but as I said many times it’s not my decision so I don’t want to get too involved,” he said.

“As I said I think Kimi would have been nice in many ways. Now it’s not happening it doesn’t make much sense to talk about that. But who knows, he’s still young I’m still young so I don’t know, a lot of things can still happen. Never say never but probably for next year it’s not going to happen.”

2013 Belgian Grand Prix

Image ?�?� Daimler/Hoch Zwei