Lewis Hamilton has played down talk that his McLaren team is now favorite for the World Championship after its back-to-back successes in Turkey and Canada, insisting the title race is still wide open.
Although Hamilton's triumphs over teammate Jenson Button in Istanbul and Montreal have seen the team overhaul early season pacesetters Red Bull Racing in the standings, the former World Champion thinks that there is little separating the leading outfits.
"I never look at a season and say who are the title favorites," said Hamilton. "Red Bull I still think is in contention for that, and this weekend you will see Ferrari step up to it now.
"In recent weeks we came out as favorites, but I think we are only halfway into the season. There have been quite a lot of changes in the last bulk of races, but there is still a long way to go."
McLaren is planning to introduce a major upgrade package for its car at the British Grand Prix, which will include the exhaust blown diffuser that a number of teams have introduced this weekend. Hamilton believes that with so many changes, the competitive order could shift around quite a lot in the next few races.
"We have to take each race one at a time and it is going to be tough – the next races are going to be very tricky," he said.