The Maranello squad struggled for pace on Friday and, while things improved on Saturday, Vettel was still 1.2 seconds off the pole position time set by Nico Rosberg.

Vettel will start tomorrow's race from third position behind the German and Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, who set the exact same time as him, but earlier.

"I think we did a good step from yesterday obviously," said Vettel. "We were a long way off but I think we improved the car, but yeah, overall obviously still not great if you look at the gap to Mercedes.

"So that's something we need to try and understand. We know the car is quick and the pace is there from last week but obviously it's different circuit, different conditions.

"It's not ideal. Nevertheless we put both cars in a very good position to have a good race tomorrow and anything can happen."

Vettel does not believe Ferrari's poor pace is coming from a lack of power from the engine, and he reckons it is the slow corners where the team is losing more time.

"I think if you look at the gap to the polesitter, I don't think it's fair," he said. "We have a strong engine. We have made very good progress on that front.

"I know that's not the place we lose more time, there's a lot of corners here.

"I think we just struggle to extract the same from the low-speed corners as others do, arguably also Force India, so that's something we need to understand because we know that our car is quick but for some reason here we seem to struggle a bit."

Vettel, who jumped the two Mercedes from third on the grid in the previous race in Canada, believes another strong start could be on the cards tomorrow.

"Yes, it's possible. It depends also on what the others are doing, but I think we had good practice starts this weekend. We should have a decent start tomorrow.

"We start on the clean side so we'll see but it is going to be a long race, yes the start will be important."