Kimi Raikkonen says a number of small factors have contributed to him closing the gap to Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel this year.

Raikkonen is currently seven points behind Vettel in the drivers' championship, compared to the 99-point gap he had to his teammate after the same amount of races last year. In qualifying he has beaten Vettel five times in 14 races and at the last five rounds has outqualified Vettel three times.

Asked how he has closed the gap to Vettel this year, Raikkonen said: "It's a lot of small things. The car has to be good for making good lap times, I work with a great group of people but there are so many small things involved that even if a very small thing is not correct the lap time or the race distance is not there.

"I think we learned a lot from difficult things in the past few years and this year has been more as it should be."

At the start of the year Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene requested the car be better suited to Raikkonen's driving style. The Finn had complained that the 2014 and 2015 Ferraris did not give him the confidence and feedback he desired when turning into corners. The 2016 Ferrari has a more positive front end and Raikkonen says he feels more comfortable with the car.

"The driving has been pretty OK but I still feel we can improve more in all the details. There's a lot of details to work on to be more comfortable and know what the car will do, so we can push more, but there's no one thing you can say you can change and that will turn things around or pull yourself around. It's a lot of small details."