Maurizio Arrivabene has counted Ferrari out of Mercedes's last-minute scramble to replace the newly-retired world champion Nico Rosberg.

Sebastian Vettel was touted as a potential target for the German squad, but Ferrari boss Arrivabene said that the team will not get involved in any way with the "Nico problem".

"I would like to be in the position of Toto Wolff," he said, "in the sense that he has won the world championship.

"But with this let's call it 'Nico problem', I leave it completely to him. We have two drivers, they are under contract for next year so it's not my problem. Toto will find a solution."

German Vettel, however, was obviously frustrated towards the end of 2016, but Arrivabene insists that Ferrari made noticeable strides forward as the season closed.

"It's useless to hide," said the Italian, according to Italy's Sky. "The season was disappointing for us.

"But from Japan there were encouraging signals for next year.

"The beginning of the season had all the perfect hopes but during the year we noticed certain processes were not working, above all regarding the aerodynamics.

"A correction was made but unfortunately too late. But in Japan we started to get a glimpse of the work of the new group, and it was a very important signal."

The 2017 calendar commences with the Australian Grand Prix in March.