Kimi Raikkonen has dismissed the notion he has become a different driver since rejoining Ferrari and stressed that he and Sebastian Vettel start the season equal.
Raikkonen has struggled since re-joining Ferrari in 2014, taking just three podiums in two seasons which have seen him comprehensively out-performed by his team-mate. This year Ferrari is expected to take the fight to Mercedes but more attention is being given to Vettel as a potential title contender.
Asked which Raikkonen -- the one of old or the more inconsistent modern version -- would start the season, the 2007 world champion replied: "I am always the same, it is only in your head that I have changed, but not in my life."
When a journalist suggested the new car was better suited for him to compete with Vettel, he replied: "We try to win championship and it is about the team and the drivers. We both have the same car and it is up to us to get the best from it. We work for the team and hopefully we get the results that we want.
"The plan is always to do better and obviously if the car works well and we get all the things that we want it will make things easier. We will have to see where we are against the others but there are no special tricks to suddenly make it good or worse. I think if there is people would have found it already but it is one of those things."
Though Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton is wary Ferrari has "something up its sleeve" for Melbourne, Vettel does not think Ferrari will challenge the world champions immediately. Raikkonen refused to be drawn on making any predictions about how the season will unfold.
"I am not going to guess anything. I hope we are there. It is the same story asking where we are going to be, I don't know. I only know from the test where we are, but we try to do the best every weekend and be up there. So we will see how it goes.
"Nothing has changed since testing. There is nothing different from the last da of testing for now. Sunday we will get a better idea but the weather is probably going to be a bit tricky here."