Hamilton brushes off Vettel's track record pace

Lewis Hamilton has shrugged off Ferrari Formula 1 rival Sebastian Vettel's track record pace in Barcelona as Mercedes opted to focus on a different programme through pre-season testing.

Vettel stole the headlines on Thursday by smashing the previous track record at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, posting a final time of 1:17.182 to finish over one second clear of the field on the hypersoft tyre.

Mercedes focused on its long-run pace through Thursday's sessions, with Hamilton not wishing to read too much into Vettel's time.

"I don’t know if it’s a qualifying run. I don’t really know, I don’t really care - it’s testing," Hamilton said.

"I think someone said I was down in 11th today. It doesn’t matter. It matters where we are in qualifying, in Q3 in the first race when everyone's on low fuel.

"For example, for us we’ve not been on low fuel yet so I have no idea where the car can go.

"I hope it’s good. I hope it’s a good time so that means that they’re strong and that means we have a race on our hands."

Mercedes opted against taking any of the hypersoft compound tyres to Barcelona for pre-season testing, but Valtteri Bottas' race pace on Thursday offered encouraging signs for the SIlver Arrows heading into the new season.