Vettel wanted Raikkonen battle in Melbourne

Sebastian Vettel says he was disappointed not to be able to fight team-mate Kimi Raikkonen during last week's Australian Grand Prix.

An impressive start by both Ferrari drivers saw Vettel lead his team-mate out of turn two in Melbourne, with the pair running strongly in the opening stint. A strategic error during the red flag period ultimately cost Vettel a chance of victory, while Raikkonen himself was forced to retire shortly after the race resumed.

Vettel - who was not allowed to be told what had caused Raikkonen to stop during the race - says the way the two were closely-matched in Melbourne left him hoping he would be fighting the Finn for victory early on.

"I think as a team obviously we try to score as many points as possible," Vettel said. "I think you could see in the first stint that there wasn’t much between Kimi and myself. I think we were very close [all] weekend and ideally we would have fought for the same place on the track.

"I have no problems with Kimi, I get along well with him and equally, in general the first guy that I want to do well other than myself obviously is Kimi, so it’s a shame that he didn’t see the chequered flag."

Raikkonen - who beat Vettel in Bahrain last season - expects Ferrari to be as competitive in at the second race as it was in Australia.

"We go to another race, we obviously have to work on certain things, improve and make sure we don’t have any issues," Raikkonen said. "It’s a completely different circuit from [Melbourne], the conditions will be completely different too, but I don’t see why things should change an awful lot. Let’s wait and see what you can do."

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