Sebastian Vettel still expects Ferrari to enjoy success this season, but admits closing the gap will need time.
The German scored his best finish of the year in Monaco, moving upto second after Max Verstappen's penalty as Mercedes' run of 1-2 finishes came to an end.
But Vettel was still far from satisfied with the performance of the Prancing Horse and knows the path to achieving those results more often remains lengthy.
“I think it’s not been the easiest and straightforward ride so far but I feel that there’s more potential in this car, there’s more potential in the team," he was quoted by PlanetF1.
"We need to stick together, we need to work hard and even if it would be nice to flip a coin and turn things around, probably for everybody’s sake except those two guys, it’s not going to happen overnight.
“We need to work hard and pay a lot of attention to small things, to details in order to get closer and once we are matched I think we can put a lot more pressure on them.
“I will have a lot closer races but currently we are sitting too far away, behind Mercedes and probably a match on average with Red Bull is not where we want to be.”
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While much of the focus has been on Ferrari's car issues, Vettel accepts he must take some responsibility too for the poor results.
“I’m part of the team so I don’t put myself above [it],” he said. “I’ve had some difficult moments this year where I’m fighting the car.
“I’m not really entering yet to the level where I feel a lot more comfortable and I feel comfortable to squeeze out more performance from the car.
“But I think it’s linked to the fact that we struggle to put our car in the right window.
“Once it is there, it is feeling better and you’re able to build upon that but it doesn’t happen very often."
