Raikkonen bemused by Ferrari problems

Kimi Raikkonen says the timing of Ferrari's recent problems has been "a bit weird" after the team was forced to try and fix issues on the grid at each of the last two races.

After Sebastian Vettel missed qualifying at the Malaysia Grand Prix, Raikkonen himself failed to start from second on the grid as both cars suffered inlet manifold failures. There was a repeat performance in Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix when Ferrari tried to fix a spark plug issue on Vettel's car on the grid, but the German – who was also starting from second place behind Lewis Hamilton – was forced to retire in the opening laps.

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"Obviously it's far from ideal for any of us when we have some technical issues," Raikkonen said. "It's also a bit weird, because in the last race Seb had an issue on Saturday, before qualifying, but now it's been twice that the cars have been running fine in qualifying and then on Sundays, when we go out we find some issues.

"Obviously it's not something we expected, it comes out of nothing, so we have to see why this is happening and fix it. But it's one of those things that suddenly hits you at a moment where there isn't an awful lot you can do."

Despite Hamilton and Mercedes being able to wrap up both the drivers' and constructors' titles at the next race in Austin, Raikkonen says Ferrari will not let up regardless of the championship picture.

"I don't know what's going to happen, obviously nobody knows," he said. "All we know is that we're going to push until the last lap of the last race and then we'll see where we end up. Obviously it has not been the greatest races lately but I think we have the speed when we put things in the right place, so that's at least something positive."

Asked which of the final four races Ferrari has a good chance of winning, Raikkonen replied:

"All of them. In any of them as long as we do everything as well as possible and, obviously, it's a bit of an unknown. They are quite different from each other. We have to go every weekend, start from zero and do the best that we can, avoiding the issues and the mistakes."