Raikkonen says he sacrificed Spanish GP F1 result to help Ferrari

Ferrari brought an updated package to Barcelona but after running it on Friday, Raikkonen switched back to the Bahrain-spec as he and team-mate Sebastian Vettel carried out back-to-back tests in final practice.

Raikkonen stuck with the same package for the remainder of the weekend, qualifying seventh and finishing fifth while Vettel was able to score his fourth podium of the season with the updated car.

"I think we learned a lot from going for two separate cars following on Saturday and Sunday so I'm more confident we can see things more balanced," said the Finn.

"In a test, it's just the one car and you have to change a few things so sometimes the only way to do this and see the difference is to run with two cars at the same time on the circuit with different things.

"I was prepared to take the risk and sacrifice the result a little bit but it is what it is.

"If we can learn and we can speed up our knowledge that we gain then that will help us not doubt things so much.

"The result hurt a bit but it was just the one race."

Despite the gap to Mercedes appearing to have increased, Raikkonen remained upbeat about the Scuderia's prospects in upcoming grands prix.

"It has been one of those weekends so we have to see what we can do in the next races," he said.

"But I think we will have learned a lot from this weekend and we have good things to come on the car.

"It was not what we wanted obviously but it's still not a disaster and we know where we have to improve. It could have been a lot worse.

"The goal is to be at least as fast as them [Mercedes] and to fight with them."