Last Updated: Mon, 13 Mar 2017 17:06

Lewis Hamilton claims they didn't enjoy a "perfect day" in testing but feels the new Mercedes car has "more potential" going forward.

The 32-year-old three-time world champion has been left feeling positive ahead of the Formula One campaign, which gets under way at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 26, following two weeks of testing in Barcelona.

Hamilton's fastest lap was six-tenths slower than Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen's impressive 1:18.634, which prompted the Silver Arrows' British driver to make the Scuderia favourites to come out on top in 2017.

There could be an element of mind games involved in Hamilton's prediction as the former McLaren man is in no doubt that Mercedes' W08 car has the scope to go faster when the action starts for real later this month.

"Do we have more potential? I mean time will tell," he said. "We've been focusing on trying to understand this car and getting the most out of it and as I've said, there's never generally been the perfect day, but there's more potential in the car for it to grow.

"Every year in testing, you don't necessarily go as q uick as you can and sometimes there are times when teams hide potential by sandbagging, but I don't really see that [tactic] as being a benefit to the team.

"I didn't feel like I got everything out of it [the car], so I could go faster, but of course there are all sorts of things that can bring the time down [such as fuel load]."

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