Fernando Alonso says it is "good" to see former team Ferrari winning races in Formula 1 once again after Sebastian Vettel ended its win drought last weekend in Australia.

Vettel stormed to victory in the season-opener at Albert Park ahead of Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, signalling that Ferrari could be set to contend for its first championship since 2008.

Alonso raced for Ferrari between 2010 and 2014, missing out on the championship at the final race of the year on two occasions before leaving with one year still to run on his contract to join McLaren.

Given current team McLaren's struggles, Alonso has been reduced to a spectator role for the fights at the front of the field, and said he was pleased to see his former team returning to winning ways.

ANALYSIS: Australian GP - The Debrief!

"I think last year also, they were going for victory here and they had to do an extra stop at the end and Nico [Rosberg] took a win here," Alonso said.

"Let's wait a couple of races, but definitely, they seem more competitive. It's good.

"But as I said, last year they were ready for the win here."

Alonso's thoughts were echoed by Mercedes F1 chief Toto Wolff, who said that the greater competition provided by Ferrari this year would spur his team on and make it more determined to win.

"I think fighting against Ferrari is something that is exciting," Wolff said. "It is exciting for the fans and a new challenge for us. Even if we won all those races and it looked like it was easy, it was clear that it wasn't. we were always sceptical whether it was good enough, and we always tried to see the negatives in everything we did, and look at the worst-case scenario.

"That is why we always considered Red Bull or Ferrari to be real competitors. And they were. So therefore the perception or the perspective is still absolutely the same."

Latest Tweets from Crash.net & GPF1rst