Sebastian Vettel: There's never been a winter testing less conclusive than 2013

World Champion Sebastian Vettel believes Formula 1's teams head into the new season on the back of the 'least conclusive' winter ever.

The unpredictable performance teams were finding with Pirelli's softer 2013 tyres, which was first put down to an atypically abrasive surface at Jerez and then generally cool temperatures across the two weeks at Barcelona, meant drivers were often able to get more than one or two consistent timed laps during a stint before the rubber fell away. Vettel admitted Red Bull found the inconsistency stymied proper set-up comparisons - but did stress that the situation could turn on its head come the expected warmer climes of Melbourne, thus effectively rendering the timesheets of the Spanish winter meaningless. "It was extremely difficult to read some set-up changes and find the direction with the car because the tyres were simply not good enough," he declared. "I think the last two days were fairly good in terms of weather - blue skies, sunshine, it wasn't very cold and the asphalt was quite warm - but the tyres were still poor, so we need to see. "[We will] look into the data between now and Melbourne to understand a little bit more and then we probably know what expects us in Australia and for the beginning of the season - but it could all be different. "So I think therefore lap times are not important and where we are now on the timesheet is not that important."