Arrivabene insists Ferrari F1 efforts paying off despite defeat

Ferrari has failed to win so far in the 2016 F1 season but has scored a podium in six of the seven races.

Vettel made a lightning getaway from third in Canada to lead into Turn 1 but he failed to make a two-stop strategy work and lost out on victory to Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel finished five seconds adrift of the Mercedes and Ferrari team principal Arrivabene pointed to that small gap as a reason to think the Scuderia's efforts are paying dividends - especially after a poor Monaco GP.

"I was really up to the sky when I saw the start of Sebastian because it was one of the greatest starts that I've ever seen in Formula 1," he said.

"We pushed hard and the work that we started straight after Monaco started to pay off.

"We understand the car better, and we are working during the race weekend in a way that we are able to find the right balance and this is going to pay off."

Arrivabene conceded Ferrari, which introduced a turbo update for Canada, still has plenty of work to do to regularly challenge pacesetter Mercedes.

"We improved with the car but it's not enough because Mercedes is in front of us," he said.

"We have to do more and more and more and we need to continue like this and be positive.

"We start to understand clearly how to find the right balance with the car and to work with it.

"The gap that we have from Mercedes is now short, but we need to work more to be able to win.

"When you sniff the victory that is near you, you get a bit nervous or disappointed straight after the race, as I was.

"But the team was doing a great job this weekend and I'm happy."