Ferrari 'pushing like crazy' - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari is "pushing like crazy" to out-develop its rivals after a strong start to pre-season testing.

After Kimi Raikkonen set the pace on the second day of the opening test in Spain, Vettel matched his result from the opening day when he was second to Mercedes on Wednesday. The gap between the German and Valtteri Bottas was less than a quarter of a second even though Mercedes ran the ultrasoft tire, but Vettel says Ferrari's focus is on improving as quickly as possible.

"Well, everyone is pushing like crazy," Vettel said. "There's a lot of work ahead of us. We've had a good three days, could have been better but we did a decent amount of laps. We have a lot of stuff where we know we need to improve.

"I didn't really pay much attention to what the others are doing, at the end of the day everyone is looking at one lap time. Much more important is what happens throughout the day – it's very difficult to read. As I said, what's most important now is we are running and as I said we need to improve."

Asked if it felt like there is more potential in the SF70H than last season's Ferrari, Vettel replied: "Well, time will tell!

"I don't have a crystal ball. I have two other balls but they don't tell me much. I think at this time we have a lot of stuff on our list. It's a very, very long list. So we have a lot of things to do. For sure the potential is higher as the rules are very different, but it is for everyone. Quite curious to see from now to Melbourne how the car will change and how everyone else will change. In Melbourne we'll have more of a clue where we are."

While coy on his own team's chances, the four-time world champion is a fan of the 2017 cars from a driving perspective.

"I think from a driver's point of view it's better pretty much everywhere. Braking is better, cornering is better, you've got much more grip. Then in low speed where arguably downforce effect is less, you have wider tires so the grip from them, it works pretty much like an aspirin, it fixes everything. It's difficult to compare. It's a different animal, a different beast.

"But for sure, we have a lot of work ahead of us. The team is pushing very hard. We had a quiet winter where we tried to focus on what's important. Same here, we try to do our job. The list that we have to do is very long. Could have had a better first couple of days, but yeah, still a lot of work to do."