Kimi Raikkonen has faith in Ferrari to 'put things in perfect order' for him with the SF70H which will enable him to challenge for race wins alongside Sebastian Vettel.

With Vettel charging to victory at the 2017 Formula 1 season opener in Melbourne Raikkonen endured a frustrating race to finish fourth but 22 seconds off his team-mate despite suffering no mechanical issues with his car.

Australian Grand Prix: The Debrief

The 2007 F1 world champion is confident once Ferrari cures the understeer he is battling while using ultra-soft tyres he can cut down the deficit to Vettel and provide the Italian manufacturer with opportunities for 1-2 finishes.

"When we put things in perfect order [we can finish 1-2]," Raikkonen said. "It's good for him [Vettel], good for the team. We have a good base, a good car, but there's a lot to work on. It's a long championship and we just have to see how it goes.

"It's a bit disappointing where I finished but we know what we have to do. At least we finished, after quite a few years where we didn't finish this race, but it's obviously not the ideal start.

"This is not one hundred per cent what we wanted, but I'll take it. Even if it's disappointing I'm pretty happy we understood quite a lot of things over the weekend. It was a good race for the team, we won the first race, so we have a lot of good things and a foundation to build from."

Have F1's worst fears been realised and can they be fixed?

Raikkonen's fourth place in Australia represented his best start to a season since 2013 when he won the Melbourne race for Lotus - which remains the last time the Finn reached the top step of the rostrum in F1.

Ferrari's last 1-2 finish in F1 came in the 2010 German Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso won from Felipe Massa - the race which sparked the 'Fernando is faster than you' when Massa was told to hand the win to Alonso by the Ferrari management.

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