Ferrari title not gone after anonymous Monaco - boss

Despite a nearly anonymous Monaco for the great Italian marque, Maurizio Arrivabene insists the world championship is still within Ferrari’s grasp.

However, after a poor weekend in Spain, the red cars were once again behind not just Mercedes but also a resurgent Red Bull and even Sergio Perez’s Force India on the streets of Monaco.

But boss Arrivabene denied that Ferrari is increasingly weak in 2016.

"Only once have we not been on the podium, which is here," he said late on Sunday.

"I don’t want to go back over all the races, but we all know where and why we lost a lot of points and perhaps the chance of victory," the Italian added.

"At the same time I do not want to give excuses. In Barcelona, we were just not good enough in Q3, and this was repeated here and we paid for it again in the race."

Arrivabene said Ferrari’s problem is not some sort of ’crisis’ but a matter of working on the setup so the car is always in Pirelli’s delicate tyre-operation "window".

So when asked if the world championship is slowly slipping away, he insisted: "No!

"My responsibilities are to keep the team concentrated and focused as there are still 15 races to go which is plenty of time. But we need to find the reasons for the problem in the final qualifying session."

Finally, Arrivabene defended Kimi Raikkonen at the end of a bad weekend for the Finn, whose contract is up for renewal at the end of the season.

"Each driver has tracks he does not like, and Kimi does not like Monaco even if he has won here.

"I see no reason why I should complain about Kimi — on other tracks he is driving as good as before," he added.