Raikkonen keen to get back on track

Kimi Raikkonen is confident he can get his title challenge back on track in Malaysia provided Ferrari can avoid the technical problems that blighted the season-opener in Melbourne.

Raikkonen and team-mate Felipe Massa both suffered engine failures at the Australian Grand Prix last Sunday to get their 2008 challenge off to a miserable start.

The Finn did, however, at least pick up one point on account of Rubens Barrichello’s subsequent disqualification.

But the defending champion enters this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix, where he finished third last year, in a much different position to 12 months ago when he had 10 points on the board.

However, Raikkonen was upbeat over his chances of eating into leader Lewis Hamilton’s early advantage in Sepang, dismissing the McLaren driver’s threat that there was more to come from their rivals.

“I think we have the speed and as long as everything works well, we should be okay,” he said.

“I don’t think there will be any issues as long as things go well.

“I don’t really care what they (McLaren) said. I think we have a strong car, a fast car, and things can work well.

“I wasn’t worried, but we were not happy with what happened.

“We knew from the winter we could be fast but when we came to the first race we had two failures with the engine – which wasn’t exactly what we were expecting.

“If we get everything running well, we should be up there. Nobody is panicking but we want better results than the first race.”

Raikkonen endured an eventful afternoon at Albert Park and betrayed his usually clinical temperament with an ill-advised overtaking attempt on Heikki Kovalainen that saw the Finn end up in the gravel and at the back of the field.

And while acknowledging his error, Raikkonen insisted he had not lost any sleep over it.

“It was my mistake,” he added.

“I knew I needed to get past Heikki (Kovalainen) but I was too optimistic and I went off.

“I think with all the safety cars and everything, we were not in such a good position. So I needed to get past and made a mistake. These things happen.

“I don’t expect to make many mistakes myself. Those things happen sometimes. It is not the end of the world. We’ll try to do better.”