Kimi Raikkonen has plan to rectify 'painful' start to Formula 1 season

While his team-mate Sebastian Vettel shares the world championship lead with Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton after a win and a second place in the year's first two grand prix, Raikkonen is yet to get on the podium.

How Ferrari's other drivers cost Vettel shot at Chinese GP

His performances have already prompted Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne to urge team boss Maurizio Arrivabene to sit down with Raikkonen to discuss the situation.

Raikkonen admits he is unhappy with how his season has started, but believes making better set-up decisions can help him turn the corner.

"It's always painful when you don't have a good result," said Raikkonen, who was fourth in Australia and fifth in China.

"I've been in the sport long enough and it's not very often that it's all smiling and happy.

"It's a part of the job. It's frustrating. But I know what we need and we have a very clear picture of what we want to do."

Raikkonen's hopes of tuning his car more to his liking were not helped by Friday's running in China being a washout, but he says he cannot use that as an excuse.

"The not running on Friday was a bit of bad timing, but that's how it goes," he said.

"I'm confident that we can get where we want to be.

"We need to start scoring bigger points to stay in the fight, but it's going to be a long year.

"It's disappointing to finish fifth, but I'll take those points and hopefully be in a better position next race."

Raikkonen's podium hopes in China were not helped by Ferrari's decision to leave him out longer than was ideal before his second stop, which left him behind the Red Bulls in the final stint.

"Obviously it's not great to not get past [Daniel Ricciardo] but we struggled a bit to really try to pass," he said.

"A lot of small things could have come better, and the result could have been a lot better, but this is how it was.

"I'm not very happy about it but it's racing and there's still many races to go.

"We have certain things to improve.

"It was better here than it was last race, but the result shows we still have improvements to make in the set-up, but I think we know what we want to do.

"There's a lot of potential but we just have to make a better job."