Raikkonen concedes he was not fastest

The Italian squad has struggled to match the pace of the leading teams this year, but Raikkonen made good use of his KERS technology and his rivals' problems to return to the top step of the podium for the first time since the Spanish Grand Prix last year.

The 2007 world champion had to fend off a sensational challenge from Force India's Giancarlo Fisichella, who finished less than a second behind.

Raikkonen admitted he had to work hard for his victory.

"It hasn't been easy year for us," said Raikkonen. "We were behind straight away in the first race compared to the top teams and we made a big step in Barcelona but it still has not been enough and for sure we have not brought new parts to the car for a few races as we are putting effort into next year.

"Getting the win now... It's quite a long time since the last one. My aim was to win at least one race and try and finish third in the championship, this helps a lot but I needed a bit of effort today to get the win.

"We were not the fastest in the lap times but we were fastest and kept everyone behind.

"It is great for the team and hopefully we can get some good results after this race. I always do well here, we see what we can do in the last part of the season."

The Ferrari driver acknowledged that the crucial moment of the race was when he overtook Fisichella thanks to his KERS technology, and the Finn said it would have been hard to beat the Italian had he not passed him early on.

"I knew that we needed to get past him because more or less we were coming in on the same lap and if I didn't do it after the safety car they had too much speed to get it after that," he said.

"I made sure I was close enough up to first corner and went behind him, got quite a bit of understeer and ran wide at top of hill but once I used KERS I managed to get in front of him. I knew as long as we didn't make silly mistakes we would be okay on the race."

Raikkonen's was his fourth win at Spa.