Verstappen cautiously optimistic following P5 finish

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."

• Problems 'just kind of snowballed' for Ricciardo

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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