Raikkonen not discouraged by problems

The Finn's retirement from the Spanish Grand Prix and his crash in qualifying at Monaco have derailed his title bid, and he is currently 15 points behind joint leaders Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

But despite the pressure on him to ensure that he doesn't fall any further back, Raikkonen has said he is confident he will remain a championship contender providing he does not hit any further trouble.

"For sure we want the close the gap rather than fall further behind, but I made only one mistake in the last weekend (at Monaco) and it cost a lot," he said when asked by autosport.com about whether he felt he was close to dropping out of title contention.

"I think anywhere else that mistake would not have made such a big difference. It is so difficult to overtake there, but at least we got one point.

"We have had two bad races in a row and without those we could be right up there. But we will try and win and see where we end up.

"It is hard to think that every other driver will manage to go through the whole year without any problems, so as long as we don't have any problems any more I think we have a good chance to get back. We are still fighting."

Raikkonen, speaking at a Bridgestone promotional event at the Coronation School in Montreal, is confident that Ferrari will be much stronger in Canada than they were in Monaco.

"It is never going to be easy," he said. "I think we have a good package so we have all the chances to win. I think we have a good chance.

"It all depends how well everything goes through the weekend but we have a good strong package and we have every chance to win."

Raikkonen also steered clear of getting dragged into the controversy surrounding Jacques Villeneuve's criticisms of Lewis Hamilton about his aggressive tactics off the start line.

"He has been doing a good job," said Raikkonen when asked to comment on Hamilton's driving. "I haven't been so close to him in the races to see what he has done, but I don't want to get involved in that (Villeneuve) situation."