Raikkonen ready to support Vettel in F1 title battle

Vettel reduced the gap to championship leader Lewis Hamilton to 49 points after winning in Singapore, where the Mercedes driver retired for the first time this season.

Raikkonen, meanwhile, is virtually out of contention, 145 adrift of Hamilton and with 150 available over the remaining Grands Prix.

The Finn previously played a supporting role at Ferrari in 2008 when Felipe Massa was battling for the title with Hamilton.

"Obviously we hope to have a good end for the championship for both of us, but obviously I'm not really in the championship," he said.

"If it comes to that I've no issues with it, I've done it before. We're here to fight for Ferrari. Who knows? Time will tell.

"It's not going to be an easy job. We'll see how the car is here first of all. You wouldn't expect Mercedes to be struggling like they were in the last race, because it's not been the case the whole year. You'd expect them to be more like they've been until the last weekend.

"We're going to do our best, and hopefully be up there and giving ourselves good chances, and hopefully make the best out of those."

Raikkonen says he is not getting too excited about the form Vettel showed in Singapore.

"It's a different place here, and obviously different conditions today and probably tomorrow. We'll start tomorrow and see from there, and it's pointless us guessing here, we can wait one or two days and we'll see.

"Obviously we hope to be in a good position, but you never know. There were many races this year that it keeps going up and down, and changing a bit with the teams, so we'll wait and see."

Aiming to win

However, Raikkonen has not given up on the possibility of a win in 2015.

"Hopefully we can win, that's the aim always. I wouldn't be here if I wouldn't believe that I could win.

"It hasn't been an ideal year, but there's good things, and obviously we have clean out some things from our aside to make sure that we're going to have the result in the end.

"I think if it happens this year it happens, if not we try next year again. But obviously the aim is always to do well."