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Hamilton buoyed by 'strong' McLaren

Lewis Hamilton is happy with the MP4-27's progress © Sutton Images

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Lewis Hamilton says that McLaren's MP4-27 is "relatively strong compared to the others" and that it should at least be fighting for a podium in Melbourne.

On the second day of testing in Barcelona, Hamilton only managed to complete 65 laps as he finished the day with the ninth fastest time, 1.5 seconds slower than Romain Grosjean's Lotus. Despite the lack of a headline time, Hamilton reckons McLaren has the car to be fighting at the front of the grid from the first race of the season in Australia.

"I think the car's strong," Hamilton said. "It's stronger than it was last year at this point and with the fuel loads we've been running I think we are relatively strong compared to the others. I'm not necessarily saying we're the fastest but we'll find out when we get to Melbourne, but I definitely feel like we have a competitive car where we should be fighting for a podium finish, for sure."

New parts are expected to go on to the McLaren over the weekend and Hamilton said he was pleased with the progress the team had made with the current configuration.

"It was a pretty good day. We learnt quite a lot, we improved some things on the car - aero components - and some KERS tests and certain things like that, but we didn't get a lot of mileage; we had a lot of downtime in between changes so that wasn't the most productive part but nevertheless it was still a good test.

"The car is better this week, I think a little bit better. Just setup wise, we haven't improved the car anywhere else in terms of aerodynamics just yet, but I'm sure the next couple of days we'll get to see a better picture of what the car's going to be like in Australia."

When asked which of the world champions on the grid was likely to be his biggest title challenger, Hamilton highlighted Kimi Raikkonen after his team-mate topped the timesheets for the second successive day.

"The Lotus looks really quick so it will be interesting to see how they turn up at the first race. I'm sure Fernando [Alonso] will be quick and I'm sure Sebastian [Vettel] will be too."

Despite praising Alonso, Hamilton admitted the Ferrari had not looked too good when he was following it on track.

"It didn't look very good, but it looked like he was on an in-lap so that's probably why; he was just relaxing."

When put to him that he'd rather be in his current car than the Ferrari he replied: "Yeah, I would say so."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.