Lewis Hamilton has said that he may face stiff competition to hold on to his F1 world title if pre-season testing is anything to go by.
World champion mindful of stronger challenge in 2009
Lewis Hamilton has said that he may face stiff competition to hold on to his Formula One world title if pre-season testing is anything to go by.
The McLaren Mercedes driver was seventh quickest out of the eight cars which took to the track at Jerez on Wednesday - Renault's Fernando Alonso being fastest overall.
Hamilton said that, in his opinion, early indicators pointed to the 2009 season offering the potential for a greater number of teams to challenge.
However, he added that, given the different programmes teams undertake during the sessions, it was difficult to decipher who was leading in terms of outright pace.
"This is my first day with Ferrari being at the same track, so for me it looks very similar to every other year - 2007 and 2008," Hamilton said.
"Just from looking at the times, it looks like [Toyota] are doing quite a good job. But I think a lot of the teams are doing quite good jobs.
"The Renault doesn't look bad, the BMW doesn't look bad, so there are quite a lot of teams looking pretty impressive at the moment."
Hamilton added that both he and McLaren needed to work hard over the coming weeks if he is to make the perfect start to his title defence.
"I haven't arrived here thinking I'm world champion, I've arrived thinking I've got a great team I need to push as hard as I can," he said.
"We've got a lot of work to do to make sure we're ready for Australia."
The Australian Grand Prix take place in Melbourne on March 29.
