Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel believes criticism of the team’s performance this season has been unfair.

The Scuderia have endured a largely underwhelming season to date, with Vettel and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen failing to secure a single race victory during 2016.

The Italian outfit were expected to be the nearest challengers to already crowned Constructors’ champions Mercedes, but they are currently 258 points behind the German team in the standings, while Red Bull have surpassed them into second position.

Despite their apparent struggles, four-time world champion Vettel believes criticism of Ferrari has been unfair, and he is confident they can still leapfrog Red Bull and secure second place in the final Constructors’ championship standings.

He said: “At the start of the year we were clearly the second best team, but now towards the end of the year, here and there in terms of pace, we slip behind.

I think it’s very close. “But it’s not that fair to say we are massively behind – a tenth-and-a-half [of a second] is not big. Fair enough, we are obviously level with Red Bull and it will be our target to get second in the constructors’ [championship] back.”

Vettel has only secured one podium finish in his last nine races, but he did claim fourth position at the Japanese Grand Prix last time out, and he will be hoping to continue that improvement at this week’s United States GP.

The 29-year-old last claimed overall glory at Circuit of the Americas in 2013 and he is available at 12.00 to repeat that feat on Sunday.