"Extremely peaky" F1 cars will spice up 2019

Abiteboul stressed that the best of the rest contest behind the established top three teams is so close that teams will have to get everything right in order to be on top.

"It was extremely tight, and it's going to be extremely tight all season," Abiteboul told Motorsport.com after the Australian GP. "So I think it's going to be fascinating.

"It's very difficult to get it right or easy to get it wrong in terms of tyre management, tyre choice, set-ups.

"We were also not perfect in that respect [in Melbourne], so it's also another area where we need to learn and progress."

Abiteboul expects to see swings in form between each circuit, citing the issues that Ferrari suffered in the Australian Grand Prix.

"The cars are extremely peaky, very easy to get in and out of the window, looking at what we've done, and some other teams have done.

"Ferrari had that problem in the race, Red Bull had that problem in qualifying. I think it's super easy to get it right or wrong for some reasons which are not necessarily within our control.

"It will be interesting to learn what happened to everyone, because maybe we can learn from the difficulty of everyone.

"That can make the season interesting, but as far as we are concerned we just need a better execution.

"We have a car that's capable of doing better, but we need to eliminate all the small issues that we uncovered this weekend."