Raikkonen Happy with McLaren Speed

The Finn knows that he must close down the points gap between himself and Fernando Alonso this weekend - and his team have set the ambitious target of winning the final five races of the season.

But despite his McLaren having a clear performance advantage at the moment, Raikkonen knows that things are not going to be completely straightforward.

"It would be good for us (to win the next five races) but it's going to be hard," he said. "We'll just do the best that we can together and hopefully together we can win lots of races and see what happens. We will be very close.

"It all depends on what happens to them (Renault) that makes the difference and says how well we can do in the races.

"I'm not worried about those things and I'll just focus race by race. It has been a long time already that we've had nothing to lose and we can only gain now for the rest of the year."

Talking specifically about his chances for Monza, he said: "It's hard to say after the first day but the tests showed that we have good speed so it looks okay. Hopefully we can have a strong race for the team, but I didn't get the best time out of the tyres."

With Montoya looking to be a serious challenger for victory this weekend, Raikkonen claims that no decision has been made yet about whether the Colombian will be out there purely to assist his own title quest.

"He has the same car as me. I expect to do my own race and he will do his," added Raikkonen. "It (team orders) is not in my hands."