Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes can't 'bluff' anymore in Ferrari title battle

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes can't afford to "bluff" in the F1 2018 title race any longer, and admits he is concerned about Ferrari's pace advantage as he prepares for a pivotal stretch in the championship.

Hamilton has seen his lead in the drivers' standings cut to 17 points after Sebastian Vettel's dominant victory at the Belgian GP, with Ferrari appearing to have taken a bigger step with their upgraded engine than Mercedes.

Though the Englishman claimed back-to-back wins before the summer break, he believes there's a worrying trend in the current performance race with Ferrari and has urged his team to step it up..

"Naturally, it is a concern," Hamilton told reporters after the race at Spa, which Vettel claimed by more than 10 seconds.

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"Everyone asks at press conferences, 'who do you think is faster, you or Ferrari?'. They've had the pace, the upper hand on us, for some time.

"Those last two races, before here, we just did a better job with it even though they had better cars.

"But if you're playing with a deck of cards, and you're bluffing, there's only a certain amount of time you can do that before your opponent realises you are doing that."

Mercedes and Ferrari both brought their new spec three power units to the race but it was Vettel who benefited most, enjoying plenty more straight-line speed than Hamilton on Lap One before passing him into Les Combes.

Silver Arrows team boss Toto Wolff said his team had been "swallowed up" while Hamilton claimed he was defenceless against Ferrari's "tricks".

"We can still beat them at races, I just don't know what ones they are going to be," he admitted afterwards.

The world champion continued: "Moving forward, we do have some performance coming, but I'm sure they'll have some performance coming, so I really can't predict what's going to happen."

This weekend's Italian GP is exclusively live on Sky Sports F1