Raikkonen would abide by Ferrari F1 team orders to help Vettel

Vettel finished second in the Russian Grand Prix to become championship leader Lewis Hamilton's closest challenger, albeit 66 points adrift of the Mercedes driver with a maximum of 100 remaining.

Raikkonen, meanwhile, is out of contention for the title as he sits 179 points behind Hamilton.

"We know what are the rules and it's a normal thing," said Raikkonen.

"I'm not in the championship fight and if it comes to that it's fine.

"It's a normal thing, we try to make the maximum for the team.

"He is still in a fight, so there are no issues."

Raikkonen jumped Vettel at the start in Russia, but Ferrari let the pair fight and Vettel eventually got back past for third - although they did come agonisingly close to touching.

Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene said he had no intention of asking Raikkonen to relent in order to help Vettel get the strongest result - but hinted that may change as the season draws to a close.

"We were happy to leave it like this," he said.

"We were not considering the championship in that part of the race and then they swapped positions by themselves. There's no need at that time.

"Of course at the time we have a need we will reconsider the situation differently.

"But in Russia, we had no need. It was a nice race, many things happened, and thank God we had an interesting race."

When asked when Ferrari would start employing team orders, Arrivabene added: "Our approach is going to remain the same.

"We will tell you in Austin what we are going to do."

Arrivabene admitted Vettel overhauling Nico Rosberg for second had kept Ferrari's title thoughts alive.

"In the numbers, Seb can make it," he said. "But we need to be humble and to be concentrated race by race and then we will see.

"The door is still open in the numbers."