Vettel insists Ferrari has not used team orders in 2017

There have been occasions this year when Ferrari's strategy appeared to benefit championship leader Vettel, and in Hungary the German stayed ahead of his teammate despite having steering problems and being much slower than the Finn.

Vettel said the suggestions that Raikkonen was not pushing him hard were surprising.

"I am a bit surprised by the way things are put," said the German. "I can't speak for other people, but I think Kimi and myself were racing each other the whole year.

"I read or heard after Hungarian GP that he was protecting me. I think if you speak to him, he'll make it pretty clear.

"I don't think he was leaving anything behind, if he had opportunity properly to pass me I think he would have tried, and I think that is fair enough – I think it would have been same the other way around.

"I think we're racing obviously for the team, we're both trying to do our best.

"I don't know what other teams are doing, but for us I think we both go flat out, and then see what happens. Normally you can always talk about other scenarios and so on, but it always turns out to be a bit different."

Asked if he was now more mindful of points than race wins, he was adamant that he had tried all he could to pass leader Lewis Hamilton at Spa.

"I think you are racing to win the race, so I think that has priority. Obviously you need to be aware of what you are doing, but it wasn't like I was saving myself.

"I tried everything I had at the time. I stuck with him the whole race, so I was battling, I think, the whole race with him. Maybe not wheel-to-wheel, but it was really close and intense from driving point of view."

Vettel said he and Ferrari had learned lessons from his chase of Hamilton in the Belgian Grand Prix.

"I think there are some things that I learned from Spa, I think we learned as a team, but I learned as a driver, things that maybe I would do a bit different.

"I think the form we showed in Spa was real, and the speed was there in particular in the race, which weeks ago on a similar type of track, maybe wasn't the case. So that's very positive.

"Obviously we had a smoother weekend all around, but still I think we've made improvements on all fronts, so I was very, very happy with the performance last week."