Having experienced a couple of bad races in north America, with McLaren taking both wins, thereby extending its lead in the Constructors Championship to 35 points, Kimi Raikkonen is aware that for the Italian team the clock is ticking. The Italian team now needs to score two 1-2s just to catch up with its British rivals.

"Of course, we expected much more than nine points from these two races," he admitted, "although it could have been much worse, especially in Canada. I am disappointed. We have lost ground in the championship on our main rivals but it's not over yet.

"This is a sport where things can turn around very quickly," he continued. "For sure nobody in the team wants to give in. There's lots of pressure weighing on us, but the same is true of our main rivals."

Ahead of his Silverstone test, the Finn once again claimed that it is his team's qualifying performances that are causing the problems, leaving the drivers an uphill task in the race.

"We lost points especially because of our performance in the qualifying and then at the starts," said the Melbourne winner. "Our performance was less than we had expected. McLaren have taken a step forward. It seems that they are able to heat up their tyres, which gives them more grip and performance on the first lap. During the last two races I had to start on the dirty side of the track. That did not help. On top of that I started with hard tyres at Indy, while all the others started on the soft ones.

"Having said that, we need to improve in this part of the race," he admitted, "because when you loose positions at the start, it makes life very difficult. For example at Indianapolis I managed to pass Heidfeld and Kovalainen and I was able to push. The car was well balanced and I was able to get some really good lap times. Then I closed up on Felipe, and when you're behind your teammate during the closing stages of a Grand Prix, you don't want to risk too much."

Looking ahead to the test, where Ferrari is running a whole raft of modifications, the Finn said: "We have a new aerodynamic package and some other things. Hopefully we can close the gap to McLaren. One thing is for sure: We really need better results at the upcoming two GPs than we got in North America. There is a lot that depends on the tests this week."