Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes teammate Valt😼teri Bottas has emerged as his closest rival for the 2019 Formulaꦉ 1 world championship.

Mercedes entered the campaign expecting Ferrari to lead the way following its strong showing in pre-season testing, but the Scuderia is yet to record a race win, while the reig💞ning world champions have scored five successive one-two finishes.

With Mer🥃cedes holding a 96-point lead over Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, the five-time world champion reckons teammate Bottas is now his biggest threat. Hamilton currently heads the championship by seven points to Bot🎉tas, with the Briton claiming three victories to Bottas’ two so far.

“The biggest threat is alwa♔ys🧜 the person closest to you,” Hamilton said.

“We have a buffer to the otဣher guys and even though the Red Bulls have picked up on their engines this year, they have not built a 🎉car as good as in previous years and Ferrari too have good power but are lacking areas.

“So the closest to you is always the biggest threat especially 🦹as Valtteri is pulling out some great laps. It is good for the team and he fully deserves his position in the team and it is great to see him step up to another level.”

Asked if he feels Mercedes can wi🎶n all 21 races in 2019, Hamilton replied: “Who knows? We definitely did not expect to come in to the season winning the first five races, which is incredibly encouraging for everyone.

“Everyone is still pushing incredibly hard, which is still so great to see. It really is a phenomenal group of people. In the engineers' room, nobody is over-confident.

“We were just discussing improvemenﷺts we could make and talking about how we could improve the car.𝕴 They don't mind constructive criticism. They don't take it personally.

“I think th🌳is is the strongest team there is and has ever been andꦦ it would be hard to break that.”