Hamilton: Ferrari need to "pick it up" in 2019 title scrap

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton thinks the team's rivals Ferrari need to step up their performance if they want to compete for the title, as the Silver Arrows took one-two finishes in all of the four first races of the season.

It's the best start to the season ever by a team, with Valtteri Bottas currently out-performing his British teammate by a single point. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel is in third place, 34 points behind Hamilton and 35 points behind Bottas already.

Hamilton praised Bottas when talking about the championship fight, but he also thinks Ferrari will have to do more than they currently are.

"Hopefully at some stage Ferrari will be in the mix with us," the five-time champion told Autosport.

"I think this weekend [in Azerbaijan], I do think they had the performance to be on the front row with both of their cars.

"From our data we saw that Seb didn't get a tow, for example, which is worth four or five tenths or something, so he probably would have been on pole had he got that tow and the race would have been maybe more exciting.

"It takes 100% to deliver throughout the weekend, which we, I think, were as close to that as possible.

"They're going to have to pick it up if they want to fight us."

However, Hamilton is aware of the threat that Ferrari brings, as he knows the Italians won't be complacent when it comes to development.