Raikkonen rules out fighting for wins

The Finn, who stormed back to his yacht after retiring from second place at the Monaco Grand Prix, is 37 points behind championship leader Fernando Alonso after having scored just two podium finishes this season.

Raikkonen thinks his best hope for the year now is that improvements to the MP4-21 allow him to end the season with at least one victory under his belt.

Speaking after Friday practice for the British Grand Prix, where he ended up 21st on the timesheets after a fuel pump problems restricted his running to just four laps, Raikkonen was clear that the title was now a lot cause.

When asked whether he was still thinking about the championship, Raikkonen said: "No, not really - not for a while now. We don't have a package to fight for wins at every race so it is not very realistic.

"The car is just not quick enough and we have some problems with reliability. That is enough to destroy the chances. But we just try to improve the package and hopefully we can get it stronger and hopefully get some wins before the end of the season."

He added: "We did the best we could but unfortunately the car is a little bit slow."

Raikkonen thinks the kind of fight back that he performed last year, where he won seven races to challenge Alonso, is not a realistic prospect this time around.

"Hopefully we can improve the package and it might all change quickly, but looking now the Renault is a bit too far away from us. It is not going to be easy to catch up."

Despite his feelings about the title, Raikkonen said that he would still push as hard as possible to get decent results.

Speaking about his chances for this weekend, Raikkonen said: "We will still try to win the race but it is not too realistic, but we do the best we can and tomorrow we will see."