Lewis Hamilton concedes that it is going to be "very hard" to beat Red Bull Racing in Singapore this weekend, even though he is sure McLaren has not shown its full potential so far.
McLaren came into the Singapore weekend confident that developments to its cars would help lift it closer to the pace-setting Red Bulls, but the times from Friday practice suggest that has not happened. Although not totally writing off his chances for this weekend, Hamilton admits that Red Bull Racing appears to be in control.
"I think we expected to be reasonably competitive yesterday and I think we were," he explained. "I think Jenson's times were quite good.
"Clearly, at the end of the session they [Red Bull] went quite a bit quicker – which leads you to believe that maybe they had a little bit more in hand than we do, but we are going to have to wait and see.
"Hopefully, the track will dry up but it doesn't look like it is going to happen. It is very, very slowly drying up and hopefully we can find some time with some changes we have made overnight. But it is going to clearly be very hard to beat them. It seems to be that they have a little bit more downforce than us still."
Jenson Button backed up Hamilton's view that McLaren needed to make a bit of progress with its car in final practice.
"The work we did yesterday was positive," he explained. "But there are still some areas that we were lacking yesterday so there is more to come from the car, but I am sure everyone can say that.
"The Red Bull seemed to be quick in every run they did, although nobody knew what fuel people running, but it seemed to be easy for them to get a lap time out of the car. So they are competitive and we have to find some more lap time today."