Max Verstappen believes he took away a bit more than what he was hoping for from the Australian GP, with the Dutchman clinching 5th in Melbourne on Sunday.
The Red Bull charger enjoyed a good start to his afternoon of racing even though he failed to gain ground on the men in front. But he still shadowed Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, putting in a solid drive and extracting the most from his RB13.
"I'm still a bit surprised that I was quite close to Kimi," Verstappen said after the race.
"I think the car behaved quite a bit better in the race than in qualifying. It's difficult to say how much, but it looked a lot better in the race.
"It was positive to see we weren’t that far off Ferrari and Mercedes over a full race distance, this was a concern this morning but I’m relieved now to finish within touching distance."
Verstappen echoed the opinion of his colleagues, insisting that the task of getting close to another car and racing wheel to wheel was a difficult one.
"It was hard to follow and drive close behind others, I think as soon as you get within two seconds you can really feel it and could destroy your tyres.
"Physically I feel fine, you have to fight the cars a bit but to be honest I feel better than I did last year after race distance.
"Looking ahead to China I think we need to keep working hard on the car, race pace was good but you can still see we are not quick enough in certain situations."
GALLERY: all the pics from Sunday's action
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