Ferrari set some modest targets for the 2015 season as it looked to rebuild its team following a major management and technical reorganisation.
Amongst those targets was to win just two races and to challenge Williams and Red Bull, with Maurizio Arrivabene claiming they would be happy with third in the championship.
However following their Australian Grand Prix performance, which arguably identified them as the second quickest team and Mercedes closest rival, Arrivabene is aiming higher.
“Our first target was to look at Williams and Red Bull,” he told Autosport. “Now we need to start to be a bit more convinced about ourselves and to reduce the gap with the Mercedes guys.”
The gap to Mercedes is still a large one – Sebastian Vettel finished over 30 seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton – but the Italian team principal is hoping to close that gap and look ahead, rather than looking behind and defending its lead.
“I think we were, since Barcelona [testing] and after Friday and Saturday [in Australia], quite convinced about what we had in the pocket so we were not really concerned,” he explained.
“It’s a pity that [Valtteri] Bottas was not there, because it would have given us a clear benchmark, but I think we need to stop thinking about second.
“We need to start to think and look forward to first,” he declared.
