Kimi Raikkonen has defended Ferrari's strategy following a decision to cover Lewis Hamilton's final pit stop at the Singapore Grand Prix, which saw him finish behind the Mercedes driver.

The Finn had sat third after passing Hamilton on track at around half-distance at Marina Bay, but when the world champion pitted for a set of ultra-soft tyres and emerged in fourth, Ferrari opted to shadow Hamilton's stop by bringing Raikkonen in. Hamilton jumped Raikkonen and completed the podium in third, prompting criticism of Ferrari's strategy for effectively throwing away a top three finish.

When asked about the incident during Thursday's media day in Malaysia, Raikkonen refused to blame his team and played down the importance of the call.

"We all do our best and unfortunately sometimes I make mistakes, sometimes it happens on the team side," the 2007 world champion said. "We've always said we work as a team and whatever the issues are, we have to learn from them and try to avoid them in the future.

"It's as painful for me as it's painful for them, whatever happens. Would I have stayed ahead of Lewis without the stop? Afterwards it's always easy to say it, but I guess if we would have stayed out they would have caught us before the end of the race.

"If they would have passed us, that's a different mater but if they did, then it wouldn't change the final result. But it's impossible to say, because so many things could have changed. It's not ideal but sometimes it goes like that."

Sebastian Vettel claimed the first of three victories in 2015 for Ferrari at Sepang 18 months ago, but the Italian outfit is yet to replicate the heights it achieved last year and remains winless so far this season. Raikkonen believes this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix is impossible to predict but hopes Ferrari can maximise its performance.

"Obviously we want to win but if that's possible I have no idea. We can be up there and give ourselves a good chance to fight at the front. What the end result will be it's hard to say but hopefully we'll find out we're in a strong position.

"We had some races where we were surprised how close we were to the leaders and if we can be up there, at least mixing it up, it would be good. If we can be stronger that's fine, we'll take it but it's very hard to predict."