Kimi Raikkonen’s future at Ferrari would appear to be safe in the wake of team principal Marco Mattiacci’s glowing reference, yesterday.

Raikkonen’s return to Ferrari has been nothing short of an embarrassment for a driver who won his 2007 world title with the Maranello marque.

It was fully expected there would be fireworks this season between Raikkonen and team-mate Fernando Alonso as the two world champions battled for supremacy within the team.

Yet whilst Alonso has again sparkled and dragged results from a car off the pace of the all-conquering Mercedes, Raikkonen has been a damp squib.

The Finn has been out-qualified by Alonso in eight of the 10 grands prix so far, but worse still has finished behind the Spaniard in every race.

Following Sunday’s German Grand Prix in which Alonso conjured a fine fifth place whilst Raikkonen was outside of the points in 11th, the former made clear his disappointment with the latter’s result.

“We have only been able to count on one car again, and we have to improve on that,” said Alonso.

Heading into this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, Raikkonen has a paltry 19 points to his name, 78 adrift of Alonso.

Yet Mattiacci is in no doubt Raikkonen’s form will return, as he said: “Kimi is the driver we need... we need to make more points, but he’s the driver we need.

“He knows what he can do better. He’s a professional driver, he won a world championship with Ferrari, he’s motivated, he knows his area of improvement.

“He sees Fernando ahead, he sees it is tough and it’s a tough moment, but we are all together in this.

“He has the utmost confidence and support from Ferrari.”