Closer gap to Vettel down to 'small details' - Kimi

Kimi Raikkonen says “a lot of small details” have helped him close the gap to Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel in 2016.

Last season saw the German outperform the Finn by a substantial margin, scoring nearly twice as many points with three wins and another ten podiums against only a trio of top-three finishes for Raikkonen.

After 14 rounds this year, the 2007 world champion is almost level on points with his team-mate while also showing improved performance in qualifying.

“It’s a lot of small things,” Raikkonen replied when asked about his 2016 form. “The car has to be good for making good lap times, I work with a great group of people but there are so many small things involved that if a very small thing is not correct the lap time or the race distance is not there.

“I think we learned a lot from difficult things in the past few years and this year has been more as it should be.”

Still, the Finn believes more gains can be made.

“The driving has been pretty OK but I still feel we can improve more in all the details.

“There’s a lot of details to work on to be more comfortable and know what the car will do, so we can push more, but there’s no one thing you can say you can change and that will turn things around or pull yourself around. It’s a lot of small details.”

Raikkonen’s results earned him another contract extension at Ferrari, with the 36-year-old set to partner Vettel for a third consecutive season in 2017.

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