'We have surprised a lot of people' - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari has "surprised a lot of people" and should not be disheartened if it fails to beat Mercedes in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Following his win in Malaysia, Vettel was a threat in China before team-mate Kimi Raikkonen almost won the Bahrain Grand Prix with a late charge through the field. However, Mercedes responded with a dominant victory in Spain which Vettel admits is a trend which must not continue if he wants to challenge for the drivers' championship.

"If the gap is 45 seconds after the chequered flag, then no," Vettel said of his title hopes. "Of course we need to make sure the gap is shrinking a lot and also we need to make sure we start finishing ahead if we are going to do well in the championship.

"So, as it stands now, we have to keep our feet on the ground. We have surprised a lot of people already to be where we are now and I think Ferrari has made the biggest step. The atmosphere, as far as I understand, has changed a lot from last year, so there are plenty of positives.

"For sure, our ambition is to become champion, but also we have to stay realistic and not forget where we are coming from. In this regard, we can be very happy, but for sure we will try to move forward."

However, Vettel believes the gap in Spain is not a true reflection of Ferrari's potential.

"The gap [in Spain] for sure was not satisfying and with all the new parts on the car we expected to get a bit closer. I think in this regard, it’s not a good result and we did not succeed, but I still think we made a step forward and for some reason we underperformed in Barcelona we had more or something else wrong in the car.

"I’m confident that it is the right way to go and we are keeping the parts for the race here and trying to understand as much as possible. We had a test straight after Spain so we could try some things that had maybe stood out and then we will see where we are at the next races.

"This is a bit tricky because it’s not a normal race track, it is a street circuit and it is quite a bit shorter than other tracks. You need different things to be quick, but I think in the next two or three races we will see how close we are."