Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari is still aiming to be best of the rest behind Mercedes despite beating both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in a straight fight in Malaysia.

Vettel won Ferrari's first race since May 2013 two weeks ago by making the most of the SF15-T's strengths in the hot conditions in Malaysia. However, he has urged his team to be realistic about what it can achieve and cement second place behind Mercedes before getting ahead of itself.

"You need a couple of races to really understand where you are and I think we have a decent understanding," Vettel said. "But the target is to confirm the fact that we were very close to the top cars in Australia and fighting with Williams for the podium and obviously in Sepang we were very close and close enough to win.

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"That was a great success, but I think in general we want to make sure we get established as the team right behind Mercedes and that means that we stay ahead of strong teams like Williams and Red Bull not just for one or two races but ideally for the whole season. Once we have confirmed that the target is to make sure the gap gets closer and closer with Mercedes.

"We are realistic about where we are and what we want to achieve. The targets haven't changed. It was a great victory we had in Malaysia and great for us as a team, especially for myself it was a very emotional day with Ferrari. On Wednesday I came back to the factory and to see all the people there was quite special. There's a lot of people working there and of course they were very happy because the team hasn't won for quite a while. I think they enjoyed the fact they have something to celebrate and there are a couple of rituals as well involved, so it was nice for them to get that feeling again."

Vettel said it was normal for performances to fluctuate at this stage of the season.

"I don't think Mercedes backed off, so it was obviously nice for us to see we were so competitive, but I think there were also a couple of circumstances that came together. Most important was that we managed to capitalise and get a very good result and win the race.

"But for here and the next races, in general at the start of the season things can be up and down, and we want to make sure there is quite a lot of up and not so many downs, but it is normal that some races you are more competitive than others. We managed to do a very good job in Malaysia but here and for the next races we need to be realistic about what we want to achieve."