Kimi encouraged by Lotus early form

Source: autosport.com

Kimi Raikkonen is confident that Lotus can continue its strong opening to the 2013 season when Formula 1 travels to Barcelona in little more than one week.

The Finn went fastest on the fourth and final day at Jerez following a short run on the soft compound.

He was also fourth fastest on his first day in the car, while team-mate Romain Grosjean topped the running on the second day.

While admitting there were no guarantees that Lotus will do better than it did in 2013, Raikkonen says there is no reason not to expect Lotus to perform well in the two forthcoming Catalunya tests.

“We are happy with what we achieved, it was a pretty good test,” he said.

“We will see in the first race, but so far it is pretty OK. I think the car is a bit better everywhere.

“The Lotus was good in Barcelona last year, and I don’t see why we won’t be OK [this year]. We’re pretty happy with how things are going.”

Raikkonen did however caution that the second test would still not reveal the true running order.

“Hopefully we can be up there but we have no idea really,” he said. “We have no idea what others are doing.

“It’s early days – so far it’s been OK but we still have a lot of work to do.

“I am sure we will have a hard year trying to develop but that’s normal in Formula 1.”