Raikkonen aware Massa will need luck

Massa is seven points behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton ahead of the final race of the season, and the Briton will only need to finish fifth in order to secure his first title.

Raikkonen, who was in the same situation in last year's race and eventually won the crown, believes all Ferrari can do is try to achieve a one-two finish.

"In the end it is not up to us," Raikkonen told reporters ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix. "We can only try to be one-two and it's up to McLaren if they have a problem of finish third, there is nothing we can do.

"The first aim is to try and be one-two and see what happens. There needs to be a bit of luck involved but we will see where we end up."

The outgoing world champion reckons, however, that McLaren and Hamilton have a lot more to lose this weekend.

"Felipe in the end does not have anything to lose," added the Finn. "Even if we are one-two it is not up to us anymore. McLaren need to make mistakes and they need to be fifth.

"In the end they have more to lose than us, they have more pressure but we need to have a little bit of luck and if they have a very bad weekend then it is not too difficult. We see every race this year they are more or less there, top four of top five. It will be difficult but you never know."

Raikkonen is out of contention for the championship after a difficult 2008, in which he has won just two races.

The Finn insists he and the team have learned from this year's errors and expects to be strong again in 2009.

"For sure this year we learned from small mistakes that we did and we tried many things and we will have a better understandings on a few things next year and it definitely helps us," he said.

"It's too early to say how it helps us but I am expecting next year to be strong as well. We had a bad moment in the season and that is why we cannot win the championship but we had good bits before and afterwards, I am not worried about next year at all."