Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton believes Red Bull will be a “different animal” this season following its ❀strong pre-season test.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen ended pre-season testing in Bahrain fastest as Mercedes suffered a difficult three days that were hampered by reliability gremlins and both driv🎐ers struggling with handling problems in the team's new W12 car.

Although Red Bull has not yet ma🐼naged to challenge Mercedes for the world championships in the V6 hybrid era, Hamilton believes the signing of Sergio Perez and the💜 speed of its upgraded RB16B will make this year’s title fight a different prospect.

“They’re looking strong,” Hamilton ജacknowledged. “They’ve had some real𒀰ly good running.

“They’re going to be a different m🍸achine or animal this year with, I think, a really good, strong line-up for two drivers and a real𒐪ly good car.

“Having seen 🦋them winning the last race you can only assume they’re going to be right there if not at the front, at the first race. It’s going to be a great, long battle with🃏 them through the year.”

While teammate Valtteri Bottas noted that Mercedes had 👍made some progress on the final day of running in Bahrain, he expects a much closer battle with Red Bull this season. 

“It’s so hard to say at the moment where w꧋e are, where other teams are,” the Finn explained.

“Obviously we don’t know their run programme, what en🥃gine modes they’re running and what fuel l෴oad – but I have a feeling it’s going to be close. That’s all I can say.

“I fee༒l like we made a decent recovery,” Bottas added. “I can’t say that we fully achieved the mileage that we wanted 🍬for the three days but actually, not that far off.

“Yesterday we made 95% out of it and today 100%; we had a really solid day with ♛a good amount of laps and quality laps and quality tests so cons🏅idering what happened on day one, [given] how day two and three went I’m pleased. But now it’s time to turn that data into performance somehow in the next two weeks before the race.”