Sebastian Vettel claims he is "surprised" at the notion that Ferrari uses Kimi Raikkonen as a No. 2 driver, insisting no team orders have been used during this season.

The Finn, who re-signed for another year with the team last week, has rarely been on the same level of his four-time world champion teammate this season, yet on the occasions that the two have raced closely on track, it has been the German that has come out on top.

The two most notable situations this season came in Monaco, where a better strategy allowed Vettel to overhaul Raikkonen in the pit-stop phase, and in Hungary, where the 2007 world champion tracked the current championship leader home despite appearing to have the faster car.

This had led to the assumption that the Italian team, which has a history of favouring one driver over the other, is doing so again but the 30-year-old insists that is not the case.

"I'm a bit surprised by the way things are put, [about] Kimi and myself, I can't speak for other people, [but] we've been racing each other all year," he claimed in Monza on Thursday. "I read [after the] Hungarian Grand Prix that he was protecting me... you should speak to him, he made it very clear, I don't think he was leaving anything behind.

"I think if he had the opportunity he probably would have passed me, or tried, that's fair enough, I think it would have been the same the other way around. We are racing obviously for the team, we both try to do our best.

"If it happens that you race for the same spot then you might meet on track, but you are both fighting for yourself. I don't know what other teams are doing, but for us, I think we are both going flat out, and we'll see what happens."

It's unlikely many will believe Vettel, however, particularly at Mercedes where Non-Executive Chairman Niki Lauda, himself a former Ferrari driver, claimed the Brackley team need to follow the Scuderia and back Lewis Hamilton in his title bid.

The Briton heads to the Italian Grand Prix seven points behind Vettel after his victory last weekend in Belgium, but it was the pace Sebastian showed that caught the eye and he is hopeful to maintain that at the 'Temple of Speed' as Ferrari look for their first home win in seven years.

“Going into this weekend, I think we need to be fair and say that the track layout suits Mercedes,” he admitted, “but the performance that we showed last week gives us hope.

“I think the form we showed at Spa was real and the speed was there in particularly in the race which, weeks ago on a similar kind of track maybe wasn’t the case.

"We try to do our best. There should be quite a good atmosphere and good support, so with all the love and passion we’ve received this year, we try to give something back.”