Raikkonen: "Only small changes needed for title push"

After failing to de-throne Mercedes in 2017, Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen believes that only a number of small changes are needed to succeed. The Maranello outfit took the challenge to the mighty Silver Arrows this season, but after a disastrous run of races in Asia, it saw its title hopes slip away.

However, Raikkonen thinks that if a number of minor changes are made, Ferrari can end its streak of championship-less sea1sons: "I think it is question of many things," he said when asked what needed to be done. "If it will be easy everybody could win. But it is a lot of things. Small things.

"It has been very close with quite a few cars over the races, and it is small things that count over the race weekends. We need to be faster, more often, and put ourselves in a position and then hopefully some things will go a bit in our direction."

While teammate Sebastian Vettel was in the hunt for the driver's title, Raikkonen never appeared to be in a position to take his second championship. He says that he must start the 2018 season on a stronger foot.

"Obviously I am here to try to win races and win championships, so it is far from ideal. But this is how it turned out to be. I can live with it, but it is not why I am here. We started pretty poorly at the beginning of the year, not really where we should have been. It has been better since then but then we had too many DNF's and never really recovered from there. Not the greatest start to the year but that is how it went."

Fergal Walsh