Sebastian Vettel said victory in the first race of the 2017 season had been a "positive surprise" to Ferrari.
But the four-time world champion said that it was a proper reward for all the effort the team had been putting in.
"Obviously today is fantastic, a big reward a big relief for everyone," he said after Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.
"If you’re not part of the team it’s difficult to realise, but what this team has done in the last six months has been really tough.
"Passion, I think, is a great driver back in the factory," he continued. "Up and down the pitlane, the amount of hours the guys are covering is mad. You need to love what you’re doing.
"I said it years ago joining Ferrari, there seems to be an extra passion just working for the Prancing Horse.
"Just focussing on ourselves really has been the big difference," he suggested. "The road we followed is pretty simple. We didn’t look left, we didn’t look right, we didn’t look forward, we didn’t look back.
"We focussed on what we had to do at the time."
Vettel added that the team was finally settling down after a number of recent disruptive personnel changes at Maranello.
"Obviously there has been a big reshuffle," he agreed. "There has been a lot of up and down, left and right the last 12 months.
"But as I said, people are happy, happy to work, working with each other. That’s the key. At the end there’s no shortcut, because you need to get the job done and invest a lot of hours thinking."
And Vettel is acutely aware that one Grand Prix victory doesn't mean a world championship will blossom. There remains a lot of work to do if Ferrari are to be on contention for the 2017 title.
"This is just one race," he agreed. "We’ll take it from there.
"It’s just the tip of the iceberg. The foundation has been laid a long time ago and really proud to see it coming together.
"I think we enjoy what we do, the spirit is great in the team and that’s for us to keep it up."
GALLERY: all the pics from Sunday's action
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