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Ferrari's Formula 1 car is giving Sebastian Vettel "the feel that he needs" says his former team boss Christian Horner of Red Bull Racing.

Vettel spent six years driving for Red Bull before this season's move to Ferrari, and although four of those seasons resulted in world championship success, he struggled with the feel of the 2014 car and endured a win-less year.

September 2014: Vettel says current Red Bull just doesn't suit him

The German then scored a podium on his Ferrari debut with third in Australia before outperforming Mercedes to win the Malaysian Grand Prix in only his second Ferrari start.

"He's obviously got the feel that he needs from the car that Ferrari are providing him," said Horner.

"He's got a good feel for the driveability, he's very good at looking after the tyres, and in that he's often unbeatable."

RACE ANALYSIS: How Vettel stole Mercedes' thunder

Horner described the Sepang drive as 'classic Vettel' and said he was happy to see his long-time employee succeed again even if it was with a rival.

"On a personal note, it is fantastic for him," Horner added.

"It was classic Sebastian Vettel. I thought he drove brilliantly.

"He made the tyres work on a different strategy.

And when Sebastian is in the lead, we've seen many times what he is capable of."

EARLY FERRARI SUCCESS: THE OMENS

Though winning in only his second start for Ferrari is an impressive statistic for Vettel, it was a relatively tardy success compared to some of Ferrari's other big-name signings of the last quarter of a century.

Nigel Mansell, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso all won on their Ferrari debuts in the 1989 Brazilian GP, 2007 Australian GP and 2010 Bahrain GP respectively.

While Mansell's was a famously surprising success for a hitherto unreliable car in an incident-packed race, Raikkonen was relatively dominant in Melbourne and Alonso picked up the Sakhir triumph when Vettel's Red Bull wilted.

But only Raikkonen's was the precursor to a Ferrari title, and his first stint at the team went downhill thereafter.

Ferrari's most successful driver - Michael Schumacher - did not win for the Scuderia until his fifth start for the team, when he produced a miracle in the unwieldly early-1996 car to leave the field standing in a sodden Spanish GP (below).

Championship success was still several years away, but once the titles began coming, it seemed they would never stop.

Winning on a second Ferrari start puts Vettel equal to Alain Prost (pictured above), whose disastrous 1990 United States GP Ferrari debut was swiftly followed by a win in Brazil after Ayrton Senna clashed with backmarker Satoru Nakajima.