British GP: Lewis Hamilton says Nico Rosberg will be very quick

Lewis Hamilton won three of the first four races this season

Lewis Hamilton says he is expecting a tough fight with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg at the British Grand Prix.

The Briton heads into Sunday's race at Silverstone leading his German rival by 10 points in the drivers' standings.

"It is going to be a very hard weekend. Nico is going to very quick," he said.

"I can't say who will be our main rival. It could be Williams or Ferrari. The weekend will be down to a good qualifying and extracting the most in the race."

Hamilton added the fact he was "feeling good" coming into Silverstone was also down to "knowing the great turnout we are going to have with the British fans".

He said: "The British drivers really feel that. The positivity they send really does help."

Asked if he felt a need to win to regain lost ground after Rosberg triumphed in three of the past four races, Hamilton said: "Every weekend you want to get back to it.

"I feel really happy with my performance in the weekends, perhaps more so than other years when I have perhaps been unhappy at some point."

Hamilton was on pole position for the last race in Austria but lost the lead to Rosberg on the run to the first corner after making a worse start.

Hamilton won the race before that in Canada but lost certain victory in Monaco after a team strategy error and was unable to fight for victory with Rosberg in Spain before that after a bad start led him to spend much of the race stuck behind Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

Mercedes have discovered Hamilton's poor start in Austria was caused by a problem within the engine, which has now been identified and a fix put in place.

Hamilton said: "After the last race, Nico simulated what happened for me at the start and found a serious issue that could have affected us this weekend. That has now been rectified and improved."

Mercedes executive director technical Paddy Lowe said Hamilton's engine was not responding to him moving the throttle. Rosberg stalled the car when he was given the same issue in the test.

"We actually found Lewis had done an incredible job to manage it as well as he did," Lowe said. "Things could have been a lot worse."

Rosberg said: "It is a good period in the season for me now and I want to try to keep that going. Ten points is nothing if you look at the length of the season."

Hamilton and Rosberg are staying in adjacent motorhomes within the circuit over the weekend and will spend Thursday evening eating together at a team barbecue hosted by the German.

Rosberg joked: "I have organised to put up a big fence in between. I'm just kidding. I hope he doesn't party too loud."