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The Ferrari Formula 1 team was confident it was on course to win the Australian Grand Prix before the red flag for Fernando Alonso and Esteban Gutierrez's crash.

Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen had burst through from row two to lead the opening laps, with Vettel able to nurture a 2.5-second advantage during the first stint.

A subsequent decision to stick with super-soft tyres - meaning another pitstop would later be required - for the restart while Mercedes went with mediums and could run to the finish led to Vettel finishing third. Raikkonen retired with a fiery mechanical problem.

Asked if he had been confident Ferrari would win, Arrivabene replied: "Before the red flag but unfortunately the red flag came and we didn't win the race.

"On the [pit]wall we were confident in all honesty.

"At certain points we were looking at the gap, we were looking at our strategy prediction and we were quite comfortable."

Arrivabene admitted "certain decisions can be right or wrong" when questioned over whether Ferrari had thrown the race away with its post-restart tyre strategy.

"We looked at the gap we were gaining and at that time our idea was to go with our strategy and to keep on," he said.

He did not think there were any guarantees Ferrari would have been able to hang on ahead of the Mercedes had they all been on medium tyres.

"We need to look at the data now in the garage because every car has different consumption, different degradation," said Arrivabene.

"To be certain if we were right, to be certain if we were wrong, it's nonsense. We need to look at the data."