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Sebastian Vettel admitted he was 'not awake' when he spun his Ferrari into the gravel on the opening lap of Barcelona Formula 1 testing on Saturday.

The four-time F1 champion lost control of the SF15-T coming out of Turn 4 at the Spanish Grand Prix venue on his out-lap at the start of the test, and ended up in the gravel trap on the approach to Turn 5.

"I probably was not yet awake," said Vettel.

"It was very crisp this morning, quite cold and I wanted to see how cold it was, I went a little bit too aggressive and simply spun.

"It was my mistake, so it was up to me to try to help the team as much as I could to get some of the gravel out of the car."

PROMISING FORM CONTINUES

Ferrari made an encouraging start to 2015 when it topped three of the four days of the first test at Jerez.

Although it has not produced as many headline-grabbing times at Barcelona, Vettel believes there is still good cause to be optimistic that Ferrari has regained ground after its poor 2014.

"The most important thing is the car continues to run without big problems," he said.

"There are little bits here and there that we need to work on.

"You have to keep the feet on the ground and remember there are a lot of things that have changed.

"The basis looks good to build on. Obviously I was not here last year, so could not judge last year's car.

"But people like myself and Kimi [Raikkonen] are happy with initial car behaviour.

"There is still a long way to go and Mercedes are the ones to beat. Those are the facts, I would say."