World Champion Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that he will need to improve his qualifying performances if he is to get his title challenge back on track.

The Finn started from sixth on the grid in Hungary but was stuck behind Fernando Alonso until his second stop - something that effectively prevented him from making any real progress until late.

"I think we could have managed to do the race a little bit better but we were stuck behind Alonso all the way until the second stop," the Ferrari racer, who is five points behind Lewis Hamilton, admitted.

"I went almost eigth tenths faster on my own but it was a bit late by that point. At least we had a good car once I was in front of him and I was able to catch Timo [Glock] but we needed to back off in the end.

"We were much faster [than Glock], like with Alonso but it is so difficult. If the guy in front doesn't make a mistake, it is very difficult to get past, you need to make something very, very special in one corner to get past.

"Third place in the end, after a difficult weekend for me, was a good result."

With a glum face, he added: "We have the speed in the race but if I cannot get qualifying right then we will end up racing in the same situation like here and in the last race so we have to sort it out.

"If we can be in front we can fight for wins but in this position we just follow people. The guys did a good job but we need to fix the problems and for sure we can be back in the hunt for wins."