F1 news: daniel ricciardo makes lewis hamilton admission

Red Bull drove home the fastest lap time of the day as the Australian finished 0.353s ahead of reigning champion Hamilton. Ricciardo recorded a best time of 1:18.047 on the hypersoft tyres

to heap more doubt on Mercedes, who lost out to Ferrari on day one. However, the 28-year-old thinks that Hamilton’s team will beat his current time if they also switched to the hypersofts

later in the week. "I think if Mercedes put the hypersofts on they will be a couple of tenths ahead," Ricciardo said. But Mercedes technical director James Allison has tried to

take the pressure off his team by claiming Red Bull will come out on top. "There are three quick teams and there's no doubt that Red Bull are going to be one of the teams

we're going to be fighting with this year," he said. The 2018 Formula One championship is expected to be one of the tightest battles in recent years as Ferrari, Red Bull and

Mercedes have all made significant improvements over the off-season. However, day one pace-setters Ferrari had a glum Wednesday as Sebastian Vettel finished fourth and Kimi Raikkonen came in

at ninth. LAURA HAMILTON PERFORMS TO KELLY CLARKSON ON DANCING ON ICE GETTY Hamilton is hoping to defend his championship crown this year. Meanwhile, McLaren suffered a small oil leak which

meant they were the only team not to post their quickest pre-season time. And McLaren chief Zak Brown claimed the issue was only a “teething” problem. "All the stuff that we've

had have been pretty minor which get worked out at testing," he said. "We know what the issues are, they are all easily fixed. Of course, you would like to do more laps but we

don't think we have any problems so we are not concerned."