Hamilton’s McLaren warning

LEWIS HAMILTON yesterday delivered a damning verdict on McLaren’s latest challenger, stating it is currently not good enough to win this year’s Formula One world title.

That is not to say Hamilton is throwing in the towel on his hopes of adding to the championship crown he won in 2008. Far from it.

But as it stands, the MP4-26 is clearly not up to scratch, as was proven to be the case on the second day of the final pre-season test at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.

Due to hydraulics and exhaust issues, Hamilton managed a miserly 57 laps on a day when he and the team were meant to complete a full race distance, only to fall woefully short.

With concerns rising over reliability and pace, Hamilton said: “I have every belief in my heart that I can win many, many more world championships.

“But do I believe I have a car to win the world championship at the moment? I don’t.

“That doesn’t mean it won’t become a world championship winning car.

“So as long as we keep pushing in the right direction, and with the new things we have coming several races down the line, hopefully they will enable us to close the gap and compete for wins.”

Hamilton eventually finished fourth quickest of the 11 drivers that took to the track, and a second off the pace set by current world champion Sebastian Vettel.

Red Bull appear to be slowly turning the screw as Vettel’s time of one minute 21.865secs was by far the quickest of the six test days so far held in Barcelona this pre-season.

The 23-year-old German’s time was seven tenths of a second faster than the previous best posted yesterday by team-mate Mark Webber.

Toro Rosso, this year having developed their own car, again fared strongly with Sebastien Buemi half a second down on Vettel, with Renault’s Vitaly Petrov third, 0.805secs adrift.

Hamilton at least managed to finish ahead of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa who was 1.5secs down.