Lewis Hamilton is expecting another close battle between his Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team and Scuderia Ferrari this weekend at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza after seeing the similarities in pace between the two teams in Friday practice.
The Briton topped a Mercedes-dominated opening session in Italy on Friday morning, but he finished second behind team-mate Valtteri Bottas in the afternoon session, while both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were able to get to within four-tenths of a second of the pace.
Hamilton feels there is still some performance to find from his W08 this weekend, and he knows he will need to find that if the team are to repel the challenge from the Maranello-based team.
“It’s been a good day, a clean day,” said Hamilton. “We got the running done, we got through our programme with no problems. The car seems nicely balanced here. We just have some work to do to eke out a little bit more performance.
“It looks quite close between us and the Ferraris, so I anticipate it’s going to be similar to the last race in that sense.”
