Kimi Raikkonen admits the timing of Ferrari's recent engine troubles in Sepang and Suzuka is "weird" after both he and teammate Sebastian Vettel suffered problems before the start of the last two races.
It was always known that as the season entered the final stretch the power units would become critical in terms of maintaining reliability with very few drivers still within the allowed allocation of four for the season.
And Ferrari, who was one such team on the limit, has seen engine problems unravel their excellent season with three having problems in the seven-day span of the Malaysian and Japanese races.
Yet rather than be mechanical failures, as some would expect at the end of their life, it is niggling problems at bad times which have instead drastically changed the 2017 title picture.
“It’s far from ideal but also a bit weird because in the last race Seb had an issue on Saturday, before qualifying, but now it’s been twice that the cars have been running fine in qualifying and then on Sundays when we go out we find some issues,” Raikkonen said.
“Obviously it’s not something we expected, it comes out of nothing, so we have to see why this is happening and fix it. It’s one of those things that suddenly hits you at a moment where there isn’t an awful lot you can do.”
What has been even more frustrating for the Scuderia is the issues have struck as the car itself continues to be highly competitive and the Finn has called for everything to be done to correct the recent problems.
“I think we have pretty good speed normally, but when you don’t finish the races it’s no use,” he said. “We have to fix them and find out why we’ve had these issues lately. We have to go every weekend by starting from zero and do the best that we can avoid the issues and the mistakes.”
Team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene is also vowing the Italian team will not give up, despite the chances of ending Mercedes' run of championships appearing to be all but over.
"We will tackle the coming races with great effort and even more determination. Right up to the last corner of the last Grand Prix,” he claimed.
