Kimi Raikkonen wants the United States Grand Prix to mark the start of some cleaner race weekends for Ferrari.

The Scuderia’s season has been littered with incidents and errors, especially in recent weeks, and that has contributed to Ferrari falling firmly away in both World Championship battles.

Lewis Hamilton has a 67-point lead heading into the United States Grand Prix and could clinch a fifth World title if he outscores Sebastian Vettel by eight points or more.

Raikkonen himself has slipped to P4 in the standings with Valtteri Bottas leapfrogging his fellow Finn.

Bottas is currently closer to Vettel (57 points) than the German is to his main rival Hamilton.

Mercedes, meanwhile, have a 78-point advantage over Ferrari in the Constructors’ standings.

Raikkonen, who recently turned 39, still thinks Ferrari are continuing to show signs of improvement but the results are not reflecting what the car is actually capable of.

“Obviously we need to go through things, it was a difficult weekend overall [in Japan],” Raikkonen said.

“We got things improved during the weekend, it was getting better and better but if you look purely at the result it was far from what we wanted.

“That’s how it goes sometimes. At the next race hopefully we’ll put the things where we are happier with and we’ll be up there. We need to tidy up things and hopefully get a cleaner weekend next time around.”

Raikkonen is quite aware that Ferrari’s bid for the 2018 driver’s and constructor’s championship is over. Now, it is just a matter of pride for the Maranello squad as well as keep some momentum for next season.

However, it will be difficult as the Circuit of the Americas is a track that Lewis Hamilton adores. The soon-to-be crowned champion has always performed well in the USA and could wrap up the title there.