Raikkonen discusses team orders at Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen says Ferrari will not employ team orders between him and Sebastian Vettel until a "certain point" is reached. Eyebrows were raised when the Scuderia opted against moving Vettel ahead of Raikkonen at the Austrian Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton's retirement.

Vettel returned to the top of the drivers' championship in Spielberg, although he is just one point ahead of Hamilton after finishing third behind Raikkonen.

Hamilton will be favourite to return to the top of the standings at the British Grand Prix this weekend, having won his home race four years in a row, but Raikkonen says he will not be employed to assist his team-mate's title ambitions any time soon.

"We've always said that we have very clear rules and that's what we go by since I've been in this team," he said.

"We know what will happen and when, and if it comes to that then it's very normal for us.

"It's only from all you [the media] that you make a big story out of this.

"At a certain point it's always going to happen and that's more than fair but right now it's not the time yet."

Raikkonen moved up to third in the championship in Spielberg, his second-place finish leaving him on 101 points, 45 adrift of Vettel atop the standings.

Asked to sum up his title chances, Raikkonen said: "For sure it's better than a few races ago!

"Obviously Mercedes had two non-finishes, that's definitively helping me and also helping the team, but that's part of the game, unfortunately. Apart from that I think we've been doing a pretty solid job but it could always be better.

"We need to make sure those things don't happen again because you cannot just expect that everybody else has days like that. Maybe ten years ago it was more likely that every team, every car, would stop at some point in a race but we've seen in the last few years that's very unlikely that it will happen.

"It may happen sometimes but you cannot expect it to happen to the others because it has happened to you. It doesn't work like that anymore. Apart from that it hasn't been too bad and we try to keep it up and do the best we can and, hopefully, keep scoring good points."