Lewis Hamilton predicts 'great battle' with Ferrari in Bahrain GP

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton is braced for a "great battle" at the Bahrain GP after Ferrari set the pace in practice and Red Bull also ran the top two close.

Hamilton predicted on Thursday that Ferrari were going to be "very strong" in the heat of the desert and, despite both their cars running into reliability problems, the Scuderia topped both Friday practice sessions.

Hamilton was only fifth-fastest in Practice Two after making a mistake on his first supersoft flying lap and then hitting traffic on his second, although he said the floodlit conditions of the evening session still allowed him to "get a much better understanding of where the car is".

The joint-championship leader concluded that Ferrari had the edge on race pace: "It was very close, with Ferrari fastest. In race trim they seem a couple of tenths quicker, so I'm expecting a great battle tomorrow and then again on Sunday. We'll work as hard as we can to try to close that gap."

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Ferrari's fast but fragile Friday
Although Sebastian Vettel topped both practice sessions, the German was not completely happy with his SF70-H and insists Ferrari can still improve.

The German was fastest by four tenths of a second from the two Red Bulls in Practice One but was just 0.041 seconds ahead of Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas in Practice Two. Daniel Ricciardo was third in the second session with the top three split by just six hundredths of a second.

Ferrari suffered two reliability issues on Friday, with Kimi Raikkonen stopping in P1 with a turbo overheating problem while Vettel suffered a "complete shutdown" following an electrical issue in P2, although was able to return to the track.

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So far this season, Ferrari and Mercedes have had a sizeable gap over Red Bull, but asked if there could be a three-way battle this weekend Vettel told Sky F1: "I think [Red Bull] looked already a bit stronger earlier today.

"We had a bit of an issue and we were lucky to recover and get some laps at the end. Overall I think it was OK but we can improve so let's see what happens tomorrow.

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"We had some sort of glitch - all of a sudden everything went dark. There was no lasting damage and I'm sure we can fix it. Nowadays cars are not just cars - there's technology and software so it seems like something went wrong there."

Raikkonen has been on the podium eight times in Bahrain but has yet to stand on the top step and said there was still plenty of work to do before Sunday's race.

"There will be tricky conditions and it's hotter than in the past few years," he said. "There is a lot of work to be done to be ready."

Have Red Bull closed the gap?
Red Bull have been over a second behind Mercedes and Ferrari on low fuel runs at the opening two Grands Prix in Australia and China.

But on Friday their raw pace, particularly from Ricciardo, appeared much closer to the early championship pacesetters. Max Verstappen could only manage eighth in P2 but his qualifying practice was hindered by a damaged floor after running over a T-wing off Bottas' car and his long-run pace was competitive.

Despite the second session running in conditions which should follow in Saturday's qualifying and Sunday's race, Ricciardo was keen to play down their prospects.

"It's alright. It is not qualy but if it was qualy I'd take that for now. Actually, I'd be p****d because we are pretty close to pole essentially," Ricciardo told Sky F1.

"It was a good day. I am not reading too much into the low-fuel stuff. At the moment it looks good but it does not make a whole lot of sense compared to a week ago. So we will be reserved with that."

Team boss Christian Horner added: "Today has been a very positive day. On Daniel's side of the garage he's had a very productive day.

"Hopefully we've closed the gap a little bit here. The car seems better suited to this circuit and hopefully we can build on that through the weekend."

Mercedes' Bottas agreed: "Red Bull are looking good too and the whole pack is pretty close."

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