F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Backs Mercedes To Close Gap With Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton admits that Mercedes are going to be at a disadvantage going into the Italian Grand Prix this weekend after they were beaten convincingly by Ferrari at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Silver Arrows team, who have had the better power unit for the last four seasons, had no answer for Ferrari’s latest upgrade and the British racer believes it could hamper their chances of winning in Monza on Sunday.

Sebastian Vettel breezed past Hamilton on the Kemmel straight on the opening lap to take the race lead and was relatively untroubled at the front thereafter. The Ferrari driver controlled the pace of the race and went on to take his fifth win of the season.

Mercedes and Hamilton are unsure of how Ferrari managed to make such a big step in such a short space of time, but admitted that will have to work harder to bridge the gap going into the final eight races of the season.

The Monza track is again a power-hungry circuit with a number of straights and Ferrari could again be the team to beat. Mercedes are expected to bring an upgraded aero package, but it remains to be seen if they can return to the top of the pile in terms of pure performance.

"It's definitely going to be very tough going into the next race. Ultimately, Ferrari just did a better job all weekend. It's difficult to say how they've done a better job - it's just that they were faster, simply faster. If you look at last year they were faster here also, and we just managed to hold them behind,” Hamilton said, as quoted on the Mercedes team’s official site.

"Their power is obviously a lot better than it was last year. They sailed past us at the start and their overall pace was stronger, I couldn't match it. Naturally, that's not great for us - but I'm hoping we'll be better next race - maybe the deficit isn't as big as it was here. I'm hoping that our package suits that track a bit better than it did here,” he added.

Mercedes are ahead of Ferrari in the Constructors’ championship by 15 points while Hamilton leads Vettel by 17 points in the Drivers’ standings. The German closed the gap in Belgium and will be hoping to do so again at Ferrari’s home race in Italy.

The Briton, who along with Vettel is chasing his fifth Drivers’ world championship, admits that the next few races will show if Ferrari can sustain their level of performance and close the gap in both the championships or if Mercedes can respond and challenge them more closely than they did in Belgium.

"We've just got to keep at it. I truly trust and believe in my guys. We all feel the ups and downs together. You can't win them all, but this next run of races is going to be really telling. The next two or three races will really show if they're going to continue to sustain that high performance, or that's more tooth and nail,” the four-time F1 world champion added.