Vettel: Ferrari advantage over Mercedes down to different strategy

Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari's eye-catching advantage over Mercedes in Friday practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix can be discounted to a large degree, insisting that both the Scuderia and Silver Arrows will extract plenty more pace come qualifying on Saturday.

Vettel ended Friday top of the timesheets, six tenths of a second clear of Lewis Hamilton, with Charles Leclerc tucked in just behind him in second.

Ferrari's performance was much more akin to that in pre-season testing, and the kind of result that had been expected at the Australian GP, which Mercedes ended up dominating.

But Vettel says Mercedes will bounce back under the lights on Saturday, with Ferrari still yet to find the perfect balance either.

"Obviously today the result was good and we were probably on a different strategy to other people so I wouldn't put too much attention on that," he said.

"I think for tomorrow we still need to improve, especially Mercedes looks very fast.

"The result is one thing but we still need to work and I think we can improve. That's the feeling I had inside the car.

"For sure it was better than Australia but there's still more in the car. Then I think if we unleash that then we should be in good shape tomorrow and hopefully we can be a lot closer and put Mercedes under pressure.

"I expect them [Mercedes] to be very strong in qualifying. Also keeping an eye on the Red Bulls, they looked very strong in the corners today. I think it will be very close. I hope it will be very close."