Vettel finished Friday's second session in third place with a 1:38.265, just 0.297s down on pace-setter Fernando Alonso.However, it was a marked improvement on his pace from Practice One when the German, reportedly running without the off-throttle exhaust in preparation for its upcoming ban, was over 2.5s behind team-mate Mark Webber.
That, though, is not the only ban facing the teams as from this weekend's European GP onwards they are no longer permitted to change their engine mapping after qualifying and before the grand prix.
This new ban is expected to hit Red Bull hard as the team are believed to run extreme engine mapping in qualifying before lowering it to safer levels ahead of the grand prix.
"To be honest I can understand that this is news to everyone, and everyone wants to get some information," Vettel told journalists in Valencia on Friday afternoon.
"I can only say that it will affect everyone, when the rules change, but I don't see us suffering more than other people, to be honest.
"Maybe we will be surprised, maybe not. What I can judge now I think we have nothing to be afraid of."
As for his run on Friday morning, reportedly without the off-throttle exhaust, Vettel refused to confirm the reports but did concede to the fact that his programme was "different" to what his rivals were doing.
"Sometimes you try different things. If you're not in the top five or the top 10, clearly you're running a different programme from the others, so that was this morning.
"In the afternoon we were more or less on the same pages as the rest. As you've seen, it's very tight. I had a good feeling, to be honest, it was much better than in the morning.
"It is a Friday, and it's always difficult to see what other people do. The important thing is we are there or thereabouts. It is tight here.
"Last year obviously we had a very good race, but there were a couple of people, Lewis and Fernando in particular, who were very close to us. The race unfolded a bit differently so we had a nice time at the front.
"It changes circuit by circuit. You can't really say that's team A, team B, team C. Sometimes the gaps are bigger, sometimes they are much closer.
"I give you the perfect example - we go to Australia, we are quite a bit quicker than the rest, we come to Malaysia, and we really had to push hard to qualify on pole. That's two weeks, nothing was changed on the cars, it was just a different track.
"That's how it goes. That's why here as we expected it will be very tight."
Source: Planet-F1
