Raikkonen celebrates Ferrari fightback

The Finn, who retired from the Melbourne race, took a dominant victory in Sepang, crossing the finish line nearly 20 seconds in front of BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica.

Raikkonen's win, five years after he had scored his first at the same track, moved him to second place in the standings, just three points behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, winner in Australia.

"For sure we had quite a difficult weekend in Australia but I didn't really expect to have such difficulties," said Raikkonen after his 16th F1 win.

"We were not 100 percent sure things would be different here. We knew speed wise we would be fine, even in Australia the speed should have been fine.

"Everything worked perfectly here and we took it easy to make sure nothing went wrong. We saved the engine. It was a perfect job by the team to come back. I would have been happier with Felipe in second but things go wrong."

Raikkonen still reckons his Ferrari team have work to do, especially in order to improve their qualifying form.

"I think we still have some difficulties to get the qualifying right," he said. "It was good in Q2 but in the last session we found no grip on the tyres.

"We knew we were running one lap longer so we were not panicking and knew as long as we kept close I knew a good chance to pass him.

"The car was good all weekend, but sometimes it was difficult to get the best out the tyres."

Teammate Felipe Massa's race ended on lap 31 when the Brazilian, who had started from pole position, spun out at Turn Eight.