Sebastian Vettel said that he wasn't concerned about being half a second off Lewis Hamilton's pace in Friday practice in Melbourne.
The gap between the pair in FP2 was about half a second. That's the same as it had been at this point a year ago, when Vettel went on to win the race. But this time the Ferrari was down in fifth place rather than second-fastest.
"I'm not too worried," Vettel shrugged after the end of the day's track activity. "I think we still have quite a lot of performance in hand.
"I know that if I get everything right then we should be in better shape," he added. "It looks to be close, which is good news.
"I think certainly we have a little bit in hand."
But Vettel did admit that the new SF71H was not yet entirely to his liking, and that he had work to do.
"We actually tried to chase the balance a bit because I didn't feel very comfortable yet," he acknowledged. "I wasn't happy with the [flying] lap that I had and with the rhythm and the balance yet.
“Melbourne is a tricky track. If you don’t feel 100 per cent then there’s quite a bit of time in that which all of a sudden comes if you feel confident.
"If it's close [on Friday] then it's good," he said. "It means that you can do something, so hopefully it stays that close.
"There's more to come but I think that's probably the same for everyone else," he predicted. "Obviously it's difficult to say how much everybody will improve.
“Normally after a couple of races you know how much everybody is improving," he continued. "You know where you have to be on Friday to have a say for pole. But this year everything is new so we have to wait.
"But I do hope that I can make a bigger step than the others," he said. "We should be able to do something tomorrow."
That work might be compromised by the weather, with rain set to be a factor on Saturday for final practice and qualifying.
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