Vettel coy on team's chances

Sebastian Vettel has dismissed suggestions that Red Bull- Renault have a big advantage over the rest of the field and expects Sunday's Australian Grand Prix to be a close affair. The German led the first 34 laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier this month from pole position until mechanical problems slowed him and saw him finish fourth with Fernando Alonso's Ferrari taking the victory.

Lewis Hamilton, the 2008 world champion who was third for McLaren-Mercedes, had claimed after the race that Red Bull were comfortably the fastest package with at least a gap of half a second a lap over the rest of the field. However, Vettel, 22, believes there is not much between Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes and Mercedes GP and thinks that the team holding the advantage will vary from track to track.

"Some circuits you like more, some circuits you like less - sometimes from a driver point of view, sometimes the car just behaves better on one type of circuit," he said. "So, it is difficult to really say this car or that car [is the quickest]. "There are four teams that are very strong, but the mid-field is also very strong - like Force India. "We have done one race in Bahrain. That is the only real experience we have, apart from testing, so we need to wait a bit more."

Despite missing out on victory in Bahrain, Vettel took heart from his car's raw pace and is expecting another strong showing in Sunday's race in Melbourne. "I think, as I said, the most important thing going out of Bahrain, even though we didn't win, was that we have a very fast car," he added. "So, Friday we were struggling, we were not up to speed, but on Saturday and Sunday we were in quite good shape. So, it should be strong here - let's see what we can do."