Sebastian Vettel says that he expects a close fight with the Ferrari team at the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, despite the Red Bull team dominating the opening pair of practice sessions at the Hungaroring track on Friday.
Vettel topped both practice sessions on Friday, finishing over a second clear of the best non-Red Bull in FP1 and ending around half a second clear of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari in the more hectic afternoon session.
But despite his indomitable Friday form, Vettel believes that the fight for victory at the Hungarian track will be much tighter over the next couple of days.
"I wouldn't say that [we are in a different league]," Vettel shrugged after the second practice session, "I think this morning we know what happened and the gaps were very big, but this afternoon was much more like it.
"I think the Ferraris will be very close and I think in the long run if you look at the pace was very similar so again it looks tight, and McLaren are going at coming back for Saturday so you never know."
He added: "This morning was a bit not a clear picture but this afternoon was much more like it, much tighter and the Ferraris seemed very quick again, not just on short run but also on longer run, so I think they will be very quick again tomorrow as well.
"And you cannot forget the McLarens, there were a lot of times this year when they made a good forward to Saturday."
He added that even the pole position scrap in qualifying tomorrow will not simply be between himself and Red Bull team mate Mark Webber, despite the fact that Red Bull have taken ten of the eleven pole positions so far in 2010.
"It will be between us and the rest of the field - especially the McLaren and Ferraris. It is not just one or two, to be on pole you need to beat more than one or two guys on a grid," Vettel pointed out.
Vettel's opinions were backed up by Alonso, who was 0.497 seconds behind the German in FP2. The Spaniard suggested after the session that the gap between the top two teams was smaller than it had looked in practice.
"We are happy but we know Friday means very little. We all try different things. It's only Friday but so far quite happy," Alonso grinned.
"I think we need to see tomorrow. Today we had a slower pace than Red Bull, but we need to also see the conditions they were running, and the conditions we were running, so you never know.
"We also had some traffic in the important laps as well, so we remain confident that the difference is not as big as it seems."
He did, though, warn that: "Obviously they seem stronger than in Hockenheim. We know that we need to do something good tonight if we are to fight for pole position tomorrow."
Alonso also said that he still felt that the McLaren team could be challengers this weekend, despite another limp Friday for the Woking team.
"I think it's always important to do well and to close the gap to the leaders, who at the moment are McLaren in both championships," he rambled, "So all the points we can get in this race is okay, but I think we need to wait for tomorrow.
"We have seen McLaren with problems on Friday, but then they score a lot of points. At Silverstone they struggled a lot and then finished second and fourth."
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