Vettel aiming to beat Rosberg to runner-up spot

Although the German's title hopes officially ended at the United States Grand Prix, he says it is important for him and his team to end the year having beaten one of the Mercedes drivers.

Vettel is current four points ahead of Rosberg, with only the races in Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi remaining.

Speaking about how Ferrari has already done better than expected in 2015, Vettel said: "I think we have a great atmosphere, so I think we are on a good way.

"I think in general this season, we have surprised a lot of people and surely exceeded our expectations as well. So it has been very positive so far.

"For sure second place is the target. First is unfortunately out of reach, second is better than third, so we try to go for second."

When asked if he thought Mercedes would get Hamilton to help Rosberg, Vettel said: "I don't know. You need to ask them, I don't really care.

"I want to beat Nico. That is the primary target that I have, and the rest doesn't matter too much to me what they do."

Emerging favourites

Vettel is well aware that his season has been typified by the support he has had as an underdog, but he says in the future he would prefer his outfit were favourites.

"I don't consider myself the underdog," he said. "I know we are not the favourites but we showed since the beginning of the season that we are not somewhere in the midfield.

"If we get our act together then we have a reasonable chance of finishing on the podium on a regular basis, and that is what we achieved so far.

"But we know where we want to go and where we want to be in the future. There is a lot of work still ahead of us and certainly we will be a lot happier if people didn't call us the underdog but the favourite in the future."