Kimi Raikkonen says Ferrari is "more or less there" in the fight with Mercedes for victory in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix.

Following victory in Malaysia, Ferrari was the centre of attention in China to see if it could repeat its level of competitiveness despite lower temperatures. While Raikkonen was the best part of half a second slower than Hamilton on the soft tyre laps, the long runs were much more competitive and despite his reluctance to make predictions the Finn is encouraged by the pace.

"We will see tomorrow, it is hard to say," Raikkonen said. "We still have things to improve and you never know what happens tomorrow. We had some problems but we managed to fix them quickly and do more or less what we wanted today. I think it was what we expected more or less.

"The morning was not so easy because we found some small issues, then when we went out in the afternoon we had some problems with the brakes and we had to change them. The mechanics did a good job changing the brakes, but we managed to do more or less what we wanted to do. We are happy to go tomorrow and do our best.

"I think we seem to be more or less there. We will do our best tomorrow and see where we end up ... We tested in cooler conditions and it worked well."

However, Raikkonen says Ferrari will only remain a threat if it enjoys another smooth day on Saturday.

"We have to wait and see. We need to do another good day tomorrow and avoid any issues and problems, qualify good and then see what we can do in the race."

By Chris Medland in Shanghai


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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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