Hamilton: "As you can see, we're not bluffing!"

"As you can see, we’re a long way off, we’re not bluffing like people assumed we are. It is what it is, we’ll work as hard as we can," Hamilton is quoted by Sky Sports. Talking to the British broadcaster, Hamilton preaches patience, because according to him, it is not the case that a solution will be at hand tomorrow that will make all the problems disappear.

Hamilton: "We can’t really do anything, this is the car. We can try improve the set-up, but it’s not the set-up that’s the issue," So the problem lies deeper with Mercedes and so the world champion can go back to the drawing board. Currently, the German formation seems to be the third team, behind Red Bull and Ferrari.

The difference with the other two top teams is substantial. “We’re not going to be in the race for the win here. If you look at the Red Bulls, they’re a long, long way ahead. It’s in the region of eight to nine-tenths ahead of us. “errari is probably something like half a second to six-tenths ahead of us. We’re fighting with whoever’s behind them.”

Which other teams are structurally competing in the top-ten cannot yet be said after the first and second free practice sessions in Bahrain. Only on Saturday, during qualifying, will we see a representative picture of how the ratios lie.