Looking ahead to 'the next race' – the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix, F1's jewel in the crown on 25 May – the 28-year-old remained confident, even if Ferrari struggled around the tortuous streets of the Principality last year as Raikkonen crashed in qualifying and ended up scraping just a sole point for eighth spot from down in 16th on the grid. He had previously triumphed there back in 2005.

“It is early season,” he stressed, “and we still have good points, so we will see what we can do in the next few races. The next two races last year were very difficult for us, so we need to see how strong we can be and hopefully we can challenge for wins and go from there.

“It's good to have a little gap to the others, but we already saw this weekend that if you cannot get everything out of the car then you are going to lose some points. We've lost a few points now, but it doesn't change too much. I don't worry about it too much.

“We go race-by-race and try to win and try to gain points on the others. I still think that once we get everything running, we can win all the races, so every race we at least have a chance. For sure it's closer now than it was a few races ago, but I still think we have a good car and a good package.”