Haas F1 team principal Gunther Steiner expects the surprisingly small gap between the team and Ferrari to only get bigger as the season develops.
In Australia, Ferrari surprised everyone by massively underperforming having been comfortably fastest in pre-season testing. Haas' Romain Grosjean qualified a very competitive sixth and was just four-tenths of a second off of Charles Leclerc's time which put the Monegasque fifth.
Team principal Steiner expects the gap to only increase however despite the American outfit's competitive start to the year.
"Yes, but I think Ferrari had a particularly bad weekend and I don't think this will be the normal," he told media after the race in Australia.
"But that was the aim — to get closer to the top and not just move away from the others, because you'd do that automatically. We are in a good way we just need to keep it up."
Kevin Magnussen went on to finish a respectable sixth place and was the only driver outside of the top three teams to finish on the lead lap.
Grosjean, however, was forced to retire from the race due to another pit stop mistake by the team which left the Frenchman with one loose wheel.