Vettel's record-breaking lap 'irrelevant' - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton brushed off Sebastian Vettel's record-breaking lap at Barcelona on Thursday as "irrelevant" and says Mercedes are yet to fully explore their car's full one-lap potential. The Ferrari clocked one minute 17.182 seconds to usurp the previous unofficial record set by Daniel Ricciardo a day earlier.

Vettel was more than a second quicker than anybody else on the penultimate day of pre-season, putting in a string of searing laps which saw the record tumble over and over again.

Mercedes and Red Bull were conspicuous by their absence at the top of the leaderboard, with Max Verstappen focusing on long runs all day and Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton doing likewise either side of lunch.

It remains to be seen whether Mercedes will offer a glimpse of their potential one-lap pace on the last day of testing, but Hamilton returned to his cry for greater competition in 2018 when analysing Vettel's effort.

"I don't know if that's a good time," Hamilton said.

"I don't know if it's a qualifying run, I don't really care. It's testing. It's really irrelevant, whatever the time.

"What matters is where we are in qualifying, in Q3 in the first race, when everyone's on lower fuel. We've not been on lower fuel yet, so I have no idea where the car can go.

"I hope it is good, I hope it's a good time so that means that they're strong, and that means that we've got a race on our hands."

Thursday = The Seb Show ????#F1 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/XywuqyaiL1 — Formula 1 (@F1) March 8, 2018

Though Ferrari appeared to blow Red Bull out of the water somewhat on Thursday, Hamilton echoed the views of Toto Wolff and James Allison, who have expressed expectations that Verstappen and Ricciardo could play serious roles in the title fight this year.

"The ultimate goal is that we hopefully have more teams fighting for the championship," said Hamilton. "That's only good for the sport.

"I'm really hopeful, and I think Red Bull could be a real challenge this year.

"Their car looks great, and I've not really seen anything of the Ferrari but I'm sure that's good as well. It’s really exciting."