Lauda: Hamilton faster than Bottas

The 2017 F1 season is turning out into an interesting one. The new F1 regulations and new driver couples always generate a lot of discussion, rumours and gossip that gives a lot to talk about.

Lewis Hamilton is currently faster than his new teammate Valtteri Bottas. That is the view of Mercedes' team chairman and F1 legend Niki Lauda. Finn Bottas was signed by Mercedes on a one-year contract for 2017, after world champion Nico Rosberg's shock decision to quit the sport. "What I've seen so far is that Valtteri has closed to within two tenths of Lewis' qualifying performance," Lauda said at the Barcelona test. "This is already very good," he told the German broadcaster RTL. "He lacks the experience that Lewis has so he can develop still further on the long runs. "He has to work on everything, and he will," Lauda added. "But I am more than satisfied with his performance so far."

Bottas agrees that he is "close" to Hamilton. "We have worked on different programmes but sometimes I had the opportunity to compare the telemetry," said the Finn. "So far it looks like we are very close, but it's only testing. However, based on what I saw, I have made progress."  What will happen during the first race is yet to be seen. Both drivers look very competitive to each other and it would be interesting to do some betting on the outcome of the first race in Australia. Sports punters who want to play at the best betting sites, should consider http://topratedbettingsites.co.uk/ to make the right choice.

Meanwhile, after Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel called each other's teams the "favourites" for 2017, Lauda has sided with his top Mercedes driver. "We are two tenths from Ferrari," said the Austrian.

Told that Vettel has called Mercedes the favourites, Lauda insisted: "No. It's Ferrari. They're doing a fantastic job." And at present, it seems clear that Red Bull is clearly the third force. "We haven't shown yet that we can be on Ferrari's pace," admitted Daniel Ricciardo. "It looks like they're close to Mercedes' pace, or on it already."

But Bottas thinks it's too early to make clear statements about the pecking order. "Ferrari looks very strong," he said, "and Red Bull may surprise -- as well as other teams. It will be a close fight. "At the moment, we cannot consider ourselves favourites."

The fastest lap times we publish each day showed that Ferrari has recorded the quickest lap time. Details about fuel loads and engine modes are unknown. It's said that Sebastian Vettel didn't push the whole lap and was backing up in the last corner to mask the real speed of the Ferrari SF70H. Of course it would be fantastic to see Ferrari winning races again. They didn't win a single race in 2016, which only occurred in 2014 and way back in 1993 for the last 2 times.

Previous winter testing sessions showed that Mercedes and Red Bull are always sandbagging during testing. It would not be the first time that Mercedes and Red Bull didn't show their real pace and crush the competition at the grand prix of Australia.

Hamilton & Bottas

Last 2016 season we saw Mercedes being very dominant. They won 19 out of 21 races with ease. If you look closer you can see that they even could have won all races. They didn't win the Spanish Grand Prix and the Malaysian Grand Prix. In Spain they didn't win because Hamilton and Rosberg collided in the first lap and retired because the cars where to damaged to go on. In Malaysia Hamilton would have won the race if his Mercedes engine didn't blew up on the main straight and also lost his drivers championship because of that.

Valtteri Bottas still has to grow into the Mercedes team and get himself comfortable to get to his full potential. When you compare his results at Williams to his former team mate Felipe Massa, you can see he was clearly the faster driver. All 3 season he scored more points then Massa. He even out qualified him each season. At Mercedes Bottas will be experiencing something new in his F1 career and that is pressure. He has to beat his team mate to become champion. And we all know Hamilton is almost unbeatable and will give him a very hard time. It will be interesting to see how Bottas will cope with the immense pressure he will be under at Mercedes .

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