BARCELONA, Spain -- After a strong but understated start to testing, Sebastian Vettel has hinted at Ferrari's quiet confidence during his first media briefing of the season on Wednesday.

Ferrari made a solid start to testing on the opening three days at the Circuit de Catalunya, finishing in the top two and clocking up more than 100 laps each day. On like-for-like soft compounds Vettel was 0.115s quicker than pace-setter Valtteri Bottas on Wednesday, although the Mercedes driver was quicker on the ultra-softs.

Despite a strong start in the first two days, Ferrari opted not to hold any media sessions until day three and has not issued any progress reports to the press. But Vettel said his team is focusing on what's important and avoiding distractions elsewhere.

"For sure, we have a lot of work ahead of us -- the team is pushing very hard," he said. "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. We could have had a better first couple of days, but yeah, still a lot of work to do."

Ferrari had a strong pre-season last year but failed to win a race when the championship got underway. Asked if this year would be different, he added: "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.

"I'm 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."

Vettel also said that he was a fan of F1's new rules.

"Well 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 tyres 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."

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