World champion Lewis Hamilton expects to face a greater challenge for the title this year, particularly from Ferrari and Red Bull.

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The Englishman was thirdquickest on the third day of the second test in Barcelona yesterday with Pastor Maldonado, in the Lotus, setting the pace just ahead of Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen.

Hamilton, who won the title by 67 points last year, claims he has not been paying attention to what his rivals are doing but he is expecting to find it more difficult this time around.

“I’ve not been looking at the others. Maldonado was quick today but I’m sure everyone was on different tyres, different fuel loads,” he told reporters.

“Ferrari look quite strong, similar to Red Bull, but I don’t really know where we are amongst those. 

"I think we’ll maybe have a little bit of a better understanding next week.

"It’s like juggling blind, but that’s what I love about this sport.

"I don’t really know what’s to come but I anticipate a harder fight this year.”

McLaren-Honda had further problems yesterday with a recurrence of an issue with a faulty seal on the MGU-K, one of the energy recovery systems, which first appeared on Thursday.

A revised part was fitted yesterday but that did not perform asexpected and McLaren ended up running with reduced power.

“After the morning session, the car fed back MGU-K issues similar to what we experienced on Thursday, so we brought it back to the garage,” said a McLaren statement.

“After a thorough check, we have decided to resume testing with limited power to the MGU-K.

“A new and re-engineered seal is scheduled to arrive and will be applied later this evening.”

A frustrated Jenson Button told BBC Sport: “It was a tough day. I haven’t really driven this car in anger yet.

"There were some positives in terms of moving forward for Melbourne but not for me in terms of knowing what the car can do.

“Everything feels right with the car but I haven’t pushed it yet.” He said Honda, who are returning to F1 this season, was experiencing the same sort of problems as the other manufacturers did when their turbo hybrid engines were new last year.

He added: “It looks worse than it is. There are problems we need to solve, and we will, and hope the next test is good in terms of mileage so we can feel confident going into the first race.”

Button spent four hours in the garage before concluding with a further nine laps with limited power.

The car stopped again at the exit of the pits shortly before the end of the day because of a puncture, but the team managed to get him going again for a brief final run. 

There are now just five days of preseason testing for McLaren and Honda to sort out their problems – today and then another four-day test at the Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya starting on Thursday.

Alonso, who takes the car over for the final day of this week’s test has already said that he suspects the team will not be fully ready for the opening race in Australia.