Red Bull teenage sensation Max Verstappen was surprised that he was able to keep the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen honest in the Australian Grand Prix, but admitted that there is a lot of work for the team to do if they are to catch Ferrari and Mercedes.

"I'm still a bit surprised that I was quite close to Kimi,"

Verstappen was predicting a difficult race in which he would be unable to stay with either the Scuderia or Silver Arrows but his car's race pace enabled him to stay within range of Raikkonen and eventually finish fifth.

"The race was a lot more positive than qualifying; I'm happy about that."

What is clear from Australia is that Red Bull are clearly the third best team and the young Dutchman knows that there is still a way to go to close the gap to the leading two teams.

"We still need to improve, and we will - and we'll see what happens in the next few races."