Vettel stays cautious despite STR's form

The German shone in qualifying, going quickest of all in Q2, and followed that up with a solid sixth place finish in the race to bring more valuable points for his outfit.

And although the advantage his team enjoy thanks to their customer Ferrari engine should play an even bigger role in power tracks Spa and Monza that are next on the calendar, Vettel is more cautious about his chances.

"I think we have to keep both feet on the ground," he said. "I think everything that is going close to the top 10 area or even in the top 10 this weekend is fantastic for us.

"So our target must be to first of all use 100% of our own potential and do the best we can do. Then we will see whether we might end up in the points."

He added: "It must be the target to repeat what we achieved this weekend but it's going to be very, very tough. We did a very good job this weekend, we made no mistakes, I kept the car on the track most of the time and that was the key.

"It looks like we are finding our way more and more with the car. We have a strong package and I believe we can do some good races. But top ten would be phenomenal for the rest of the season to get some more points."

Vettel does concede, however, that the way the STR3 chassis is more comfortable in high-speed corners that the low-speed stuff should be good for the Belgian Grand Prix.

"Belgium should be a circuit that should suit us very well and we will see. Usually fast corners and fast tracks are better for us. Here (in Valencia) there are a lot of low speed corners as well so in the end we were very competitive here and that makes us very confident for the future.

"But as I say, keep the feet on the ground, try to learn and improve all the time and then we see where we are in Spa."