Lewis Hamilton believes Red Bull are currently “a little bit quicker” than Mercedes at Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix, while he also feels Racing Point and Renault a�🐼�re right on the pace.

Just 0.096s split the pacesetting Red Bull of Max Verstappen, Daniel R꧋icciardo’s Renault and Hamilton’s Mercedes during a close day of practice at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday.

With the top eight in FP2 separated by just eight-tenths, Hamilton says several teams 🦂are evenly matched heading into qualifying in Bel♛gium.

“I think t☂he Red Bulls are just a little bit quicker at the moment, but even Racing Po🏅int I think is right with us, then also Daniel Ricciardo and the Renaults are very close,” Hamilton said.

“That makes it excit🔥ing. We’ve got some work to do, that’s for sure, to dial in the car a bit more, but it doesn’t feel bad at all.

“The field is going to get closer as we continue to develop, the whole of F1 develo🐲ps and it’s already showing that this weekend, we seem to be so close with everyone, and we’ve got to understand why.

“Whether they’ve taken a step or we’ve taken a step back, or if it’s just a track layout, or downforce level, who knows, we’ll work on that. But I’m ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚexcited for an interesting race that’s for sure.”

Teammate Valtteri Bottas topped opening practice on his 🥂31st birthday but slipped to P6 in the afternoon as he struggled with a lack o💃f front-end grip in his Mercedes.

"It seems very close and I think that on Fridays we’ve seen other teams performing maybe a bit b𓃲etter than 🅺us on the Saturdays, but it looks the closest we’ve seen so far,” the Finn explained.

“It’s going to ♌make it exciting to🐟morrow. I’m sure we’re going to improve a lot, but it depends on the others.

“The whole day the car has been quite unders♕teery and still, in second pra𝓡ctice, lacking a bit of front-end grip here and there,” he added.

“I think for me the main lap tim💛e gains will come from a stronger front end to be able to get the car into the places it 𒆙needs to be in the corners.”