Raikkonen determined to correct 'painful' 2017 start

Kimi Raikkonen has clearly lagged his winning team mate Sebastian Vettel since the 2017 season got underway in Melbourne.

While a poor strategy call by the Scuderia didn't help his cause last weekend, the Finn's relative performance was still disappointing, prompting Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne to ask the team to engage with its driver and address the underlining problem.

Raikkonen believes part of his issues stem from wrong set-up decisions which when corrected will set him back on the right track.

"It's always painful when you don't have a good result," said Raikkonen.

"I've been in the sport long enough and it's not very often that it's all smiling and happy.

"It's a part of the job. It's frustrating. But I know what we need and we have a very clear picture of what we want to do."

• Marchionne unimpressed with Raikkonen form in China

Friday's truncated day certainly didn't help Raikkonen's workload, although it could be argued that Vettel suffered equally from the lack of  running.

"The not running on Friday was a bit of bad timing, but that's how it goes," he said.

"I'm confident that we can get where we want to be. We need to start scoring bigger points to stay in the fight, but it's going to be a long year.

"It's disappointing to finish fifth, but I'll take those points and hopefully be in a better position next race."

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