Lewis Hamilton is confident Mercedes are in a good position to challenge Max Verstappen on Sunday despite Red Bull's latest strong showing at the French Grand Prix.
Verstappen leads the Formula One drivers' championship while Red Bull sit top of the constructors' standings.
Even when Verstappen crashed out of a chaotic Azerbaijan Grand Prix last time out, team-mate Sergio Perez delivered maximum points in his first win for the team.
It was the first time in the Hybrid Era there had been two different Red Bull drivers triumphant in consecutive races.
The Austrian outfit are set for another strong outing in France after Verstappen secured pole position and Perez qualified fourth fastest, aiming to extend his streak of four consecutive top-five finishes.
In his post-qualifying media duties, Verstappen described himself as "quite confident" heading into the race.
"I knew it was going to be better than the last time we were here but this good I didn't expect, so that's promising for us," he said.
"We just have to keep on going, keep on pushing to try to make it better."
However, Hamilton starts from second and Mercedes colleague Valtteri Bottas is third, giving the Silver Arrows a chance even against a car with no obvious flaws.
"Of course, it seems [Red Bull] are just strong everywhere," Hamilton said. "Street circuits, it doesn't seem to matter where they go, they're very strong and we've got some areas we just need to improve.
"Obviously today I heard that we're losing out mostly on the straights, so we'll try to figure-out what that is.
"But it's great that we are second and third. It puts us in the middle of the Red Bulls, it gives us a chance to really apply pressure tomorrow – but it's just as close as ever before.
"Maybe they seem to have eked a little bit further forwards than we were perhaps in Barcelona."
Hamilton is two wins shy of an unprecedented 100 in Formula One, but will have the more modest aim of correcting a worrying run of form on Sunday.
He was seventh in Monaco and 15th in Baku and has not missed out on the podium in three straight races in the Hybrid Era.
Hamilton: Mercedes need entire F1 season to close gap on Red Bull
Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes will require the rest of the Formula One campaign to get into a position where they can challenge early pacesetters Red Bull.
Red Bull have started the 2023 season with back-to-back one-twos, with Max Verstappen triumphing at the Bahrain Grand Prix and Sergio Perez winning in Saudi Arabia last time out.
Mercedes, meanwhile, sit third in the constructors' championship having started a second consecutive year off the pace, with Hamilton posting successive fifth-place finishes.
Speaking ahead of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton was pessimistic about his team's chances of matching Red Bull in the short term.
"It is going to take us the rest of the year to potentially close that gap," the seven-time world champion said.
"If you look at the Red Bull, it is just going to continue to evolve most likely. Some cars do plateau in terms of performance. At some point it can't just keep going. But maybe it can.
"They have a great team around them and I am sure they will continue to add downforce.
"We just have to make sure when we do make the change, hopefully the drop isn't too far, and it is going to take us the rest of the year, for sure, to potentially close that gap."
Hamilton has been outspoken in his criticism of Mercedes' troubled W14 car, which the team plan to make major alterations to just two races into the season.
Expanding on the car's issues, Hamilton said: "I don't know if people know, but we sit closer to the front wheels than all the other drivers. Our cockpit is too close to the front.
"What that does is it really changes the attitude of the car and how you perceive its movement. It makes it harder to predict compared to when you're further back and sitting more centred. It is just something I have really struggled with.
"There is a part of me that is just hopeful we find the trick and are straight on to the right track that is not far away from the others."
'It was like I was missing a lung' – Verstappen reveals sapping illness hit Saudi hopes as champion eyes F1 break
Max Verstappen is relieved there is a break in the Formula One calendar coming up as the drivers' champion battles back from an illness that left him feeling as thought one lung was incapacitated.
The Red Bull driver, seeking a third consecutive title this season, was left stricken ahead of the last race in Saudi Arabia and only just hauled himself together to be able to compete.
In the end, he pulled out something special, finishing second after starting in 15th place on the grid, having dropped out in Q2 due to a mechanical failure.
Verstappen also retained his place at the top of the drivers' season standings by recording the race's fastest lap right at the death, so he leads the way heading into this weekend's Australian Grand Prix.
After competing in Melbourne, there will be a break before F1 resumes in Azerbaijan across the April 28-30 weekend, a gap that was created by the cancellation of a planned race in China.
Three clear weeks without competition should allow Verstappen to get back on an even keel, although he signalled the worst of the illness has already passed.
"I was not looking forward to the break, but then I got really ill and have just been struggling a bit since that time, especially last race out," Verstappen said.
"So I think for me now these three weeks are just about getting back to full fitness, getting a full programme in."
Reflecting on his tough experience prior to racing in Jeddah two weeks ago, Verstappen said: "At home I was really ill, I could barely just walk around. It felt like I was just missing a lung, and I got to the weekend really believing that it was gone.
"Normally when you get sick like two, three days after, you’re normally all right – you can just do your workouts – but then when I jumped into the car in FP1, even just one performance lap, I felt like I had to recover for two laps to be able to breathe normally."
He added: "It definitely did affect me throughout the weekend, which I didn't like. It was one of the first races where I felt I was physically limited, and that's really frustrating when you're in the car.
"Since then I've been trying to work on it, trying to improve it, and I do think it has improved a lot, so this weekend should be all right."
Verstappen has yet to have a win at the Australian Grand Prix, with third place in 2019 being his best finish to date.
The 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year Verstappen retired from the race at Albert Park as Charles Leclerc claimed a dominant victory for Ferrari.
Russell refutes suggestion he got lucky in Saudi Arabia as Hamilton aims to clarify Jeddah comments
George Russell has refuted Lewis Hamilton's suggestion his result at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was down to luck – and Hamilton has now explained his comments.
Russell finished fourth in Jeddah, though he looked set to take third place when Fernando Alonso was penalised.
Aston Martin managed to overturn that decision, leaving Russell in fourth, one place ahead of Mercedes team-mate Hamilton.
Seven-time Formula One world champion Hamilton seemed to suggest after the race that Russell made a fortunate choice when deciding to alter his set-up.
Hamilton claimed that call would "more often than not" have been wrong. Russell, however, disagrees.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, Russell said: "I don't think there's any luck in it at all.
"I think it's down to the preparation you put in before the event.
"The changes we made overnight, I knew that was going to be the right direction with the work we did with the team. And I believed it was going to be better than the set-up that Lewis opted for.
"I think everybody's got different preferences, I was happy with the direction I took and the work I'm doing with the engineers."
Keen to avoid any animosity, Hamilton sought to clarify what he had meant in Jeddah.
He said: "I want to reiterate how great a job George did.
"I think the thing I was commenting on is that there's one specific thing that you can change in the suspension that you have to do over Friday night, and when you make that change, once you start P3, you can't change it for the rest of the weekend, so when you make that change, you're basically rolling the dice. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
"I've done it in the past. Sometimes it hasn't worked, sometimes it has, and it worked great for George and he did a great job.
"The thing that I was lacking in the race was a lot of front end, which that set-up gives you, so, in hindsight, that would've been great."
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