With Red Bull on the back foot at the start of this season, World Champion Vettel has been forced into damage-limitation mode while his team work on improving the RB8.

Although a storming drive to second in Australia ensured his season got off to a solid start, he dropped out of fourth place at Sepang following a controversial incident with backmarker Narain Karthikeyan - which ignited a war of words between the two drivers in the media.

But with Red Bull working on upgrades to improve the RB8's single-lap pace in particular for next week's race in China, Vettel is feeling optimistic for Shanghai, Bahrain and beyond.

"I'm confident for the next two races," Vettel was quoted as saying by AFP on Monday during an appearance in Paris to accept the Sports Academy Grand Prix prize for the most outstanding sporting achievement of 2011.

"We had a good race in Australia and in Malaysia it was a bit chaotic. It's a shame I didn't get a point in Malaysia.

"There are a lot of races to come and should be in good shape."

Since returning to Europe last week Vettel has spent time in Red Bull's Milton Keynes simulator and he added: "Today I had a couple of hours in our simulator in order to prepare for China and Bahrain. However, we have to prove it on the circuits themselves."