Lewis Hamilton says Sebastian Vettel's title rivals face a 'very, very tough' task

Lewis Hamilton has acknowledged that Sebastian Vettel's rivals face a "very, very tough" task if they are to prevent him from claiming a fourth straight World Championship.

Buoyed by his maiden win for the Silver Arrows in Hungary at the end of July, Hamilton had been hoping for more at Spa. He might have claimed pole in the weather-induced lottery that was Saturday's Q3 shoot-out but Mercedes otherwise found the going tough. That much was made blindingly obvious on the opening lap of the race, when Vettel breezed past him to take the lead, and also shortly after Hamilton's first pit stop when, passed by Alonso, he couldn't find the speed to retake second place from the Ferrari driver. With Spa and Monza unique in their low downforce characteristics, Hamilton's fear is that the same scenario might play out at the forthcoming Italian Grand Prix. "When you come to these two circuits, you get a downforce package and you're kind of stuck with it. It either has or hasn't worked," he explained. "We may improve in the next race or we may be in the same position. We won't be any worse, that's for sure. "The two guys ahead, I expect they'll be favourites for the next race, unless we can unlock more performance in a straight line. "It's just overall efficiency. They've been able to take off more wing but still been able to maintain good downforce. "We're just trying to understand where we've missed out. But I think the guys will work to try and understand over the next few days where we were slower. Eau Rouge was particularly slow for us, and down the straights. "At the next race, maybe we'll be unable to unlock something." Again, Vettel has tended to have the whip hand when F1 leaves Europe in recent seasons, but Hamilton nevertheless believes that Mercedes could be more competitive from Singapore onwards. "We'll have the high downforce package we had in the previous races which should, hopefully, be improved again. I'm hoping we'll be more competitive from then on," he added.