Arrivabene says Ferrari need to sort out 'headaches' from last year

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has insisted that the Prancing Horse need to sort out the 'headaches' they suffered towards the end of the 2017 campaign if they are to challenge Mercedes for the constructor's championship and stop the Silver Arrows winning five in a row.

Mercedes have dominated the team rankings since the introduction of the turbo V6 hybrid engine, but Ferrari did manage to win five races last year to close the gap.

Sebastian Vettel led the driver rankings for a decent period at the start of the season, but a poor performance over the Asian leg of the tour allowed Lewis Hamilton to swoop in and claim spot where he stayed before winning the championship.

Arrivabene compared the last campaign to a glass of water, and claimed the final part of the season was a glass of water used to take a pain reliever due to the headaches they had.

"To summarise the season, if you want to have a quick summary and want to use the example of the glass of water -- I don't like wine -- mid-season we were thirsty, and end-of-season we were using the water because we take a pill because we have a bit of headache and that's the summary of the season," Arrivabene said.

"Apart from that I think the team was pushing, really hard. They were working well. We have certain circumstances that they were not in our favour. I have to say congratulations to Mercedes. They won and they deserved the drivers' and constructors' championships. For 2018 we try to do our best to be better."

Kimi Raikkonen didn't enjoy a good season last year with Ferrari, but Arrivabene was quick to defend his driver and backed him to improve for the upcoming campaign.

"I don't trust on luck or not luck, even if I'm Italian. I trust on fact and fact means points. Bad luck or good luck is not influencing this. Sometimes it could be in terms of perception or because maybe other drivers are crashing on his car, the final reality is the points you are scoring and this is what is making a driver good or bad. We are happy about the performance of Kimi, by the way, otherwise we are not confirming him," Arrivabene added.