Hamilton hopes Ferrari will soon 'be in the mix'

Lewis Hamilton is hoping that Ferrari can soon be in the mix in the battle for the world championship.

Mercedes has taken four one-two finishes so far in 2019, while Ferrari has struggled to keep up with the Silver Arrows.

Ferrari locked out the front row in Bahrain after qualifying, but Sebastian Vettel's mistake and Charles Leclerc's engine issues during the race saw Mercedes steal the top two steps on the podium in the final laps.

The Italian squad is currently 74 points of Mercedes in the constructors' championship, but Hamilton is holding out for the battle to soon intensify.

"Hopefully at some stage Ferrari will be in the mix with us," Hamilton said. "I think they had the performance to be on the front row with both of their cars [in Baku].

"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 one hundred per cent 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.”

Bottas has 'stepped up' in 2019

Hamilton also praised teammate Valtteri Bottas, who leads the world championship after four rounds.

The Finn has won two of the opening four races, leading Hamilton to admit that his teammate has upped his game in the new season.

"Valtteri’s clearly stepped up this year and is really happy in the car, really delivering and driving fantastically,” he said.

“So it’s going to take some really great performances from both of us to out-perform each other. And that’s how it should be.

“Valtteri did an exceptional job all weekend and he was very fair in giving space and after that he was faultless. So he truly deserved the win.

“It was really cool that we could push as hard as we could all the way to the end. It was great that the team allowed us to do that.

“Also just the team’s performance throughout the whole weekend, the engineers, everyone back at the factory who are just constantly delivering 100 per cent.

“This is truly the strongest season we’ve ever started with but really deservingly in the sense of just how hard everyone has worked in the delivery, so really proud to be a part of it and this is a really great result for everyone.”