Raikkonen concedes title hopes are gone

The Ferrari driver, who crashed out of the Singapore Grand Prix when running in fifth, is now 27 points behind Lewis Hamilton with just 30 left to win.

The Finn, however, admitted he was sorry to lose the points for his team, who lost the lead in the constructors' championship to McLaren.

"It was a pretty small chance anyhow," Raikkonen said about his title chances.

"I'm not sad for my fifth place but I'm sorry for the team to lose those points. But for sure we'll try to do better next race."

Raikkonen, whose teammate Felipe Massa is seven points behind Hamilton, said he was still unsure if he will have to play a supporting role for the Brazilian.

"I know what the team wants - they want to win the world championship," he added. "We will see what happens. I'm trying to win races too and we will see what happens. I'm out of the championship anyhow."

The reigning world champion has not won a race since the Spanish Grand Prix in April, but said he was not thinking about his drought and not planning to give up.

"It doesn't change anything. I was in a position to try to win, but when the safety car came out the chance was pretty much gone. We've been close a few times but quite often we've been a bit unlucky so we try next race again. I haven't given up. We want to have some good races.

"We have not had the season we wanted but we have a good spirit. Of course this is not a nice day but I've seen enough in Formula One and we still have a good car and we should still be able to win some races this year."

Raikkonen, who lost his chances of a good result during the first safety car period, crashed out of the Singapore race with four laps left when running behind Timo Glock.

The Ferrari driver, however, denied it had anything to do with a lack of concentration.

"No. I wanted to stay close in places to the Toyota because there were only two places that I could get very close and have any chance if he made a small mistake.

"That was one - before the back straight I needed to get very close and unfortunately I touched the kerb slightly too much and just when you hit that quite hard you can't turn too much and I couldn't turn any more so I just went a bit wide and hit the wall. Not the tyre wall, but the plastic blocks and I took the wheel off."