Ferrari: Raikkonen at Schumacher's level

Despite winning the first race of the season in Australia, Raikkonen failed to dominate teammate Felipe Massa in the early part of the year following his switch from McLaren.

Since the French Grand Prix in July, however, the Finn has been the top scorer, including four victories in nine races, and he is still with a distant chance of taking the title in Brazil despite two retirements.

Baldisserri reckons now that Raikkonen has adapted to the team and the tyres, the Finn has been at Michael Schumacher's level.

"Michael is a seven times world champion and we've been working together for 10 years, and at the end, with the relationship with Michael it was enough to look into his eyes to understand where there was a problem, to understand what he was meaning when he was speaking about the car," Baldisserri said.

"Generally with Kimi, we were struggling a bit at the beginning because he had some trouble to adapt his driving style to our car, to learn all our systems and to learn the Bridgestone tyres but I have to say that from mid-season to the race that he did today he can be at the same level as Michael.

"A driver that can do a race like today, such difficult conditions, without making a mistake is a great driver."

Raikkonen is seven points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton and will need to win the Brazilian Grand Prix, with Hamilton in sixth and Fernando Alonso in third, to take the title.

Raikkonen kept his championship hopes alive by winning the Chinese Grand Prix, from which Hamilton retired after a driving error.

Ferrari's sporting director Stefano Domenicali said it is no miracle that the Finn will be able to fight for the title in the final race.

"No, I don't think it is a miracle, first of all, because if you look, we have won eight races out of 16, so fifty per cent of that, we have done great results," said Domenicali.

"Unfortunately this year, we have suffered from other problems but we are still there and we need to be, as always, not too anxious and looking behind at the last race, but we need to make a deep analysis since the beginning of the championship and this is what we are doing now, as an audit just to be sure that at the last race everything is covered.

"But it's not a miracle. We always said that we never give up, it's not just a way of saying it, it's just what we feel and once again, I want to stress the point that the team is very close together, we know that from the outside, after one race, big pressure but that's part of the game."