SPOTLIGHT ON NEW FORMULA 1 SEASON

KIMI Raikkonen makes a full-time return to Formula 1 expecting little to have changed other than the need to press more buttons.

Two years away from the sport have not made him any more engaging, the Finn remaining as notoriously difficult to read as the times from pre-season testing.

However, there appears to be a mood of optimism running through him and his Enstone-based Lotus team ahead of this year’s campaign.

Other than a chassis fault at the start of the second test in Barcelona, which forced Lotus to abandon running for the remainder of the week, the E20 has run superbly.

There are critics, however, who have dared to suggest Raikkonen and teammate Romain Grosjean’s times that led the way that week were nothing more than the team chasing sponsors.

“I feel very happy with the team,” said Raikkonen.

“We’re still learning things, but everything is going smoothly and there are no problems at all, so it’s a good position to start the season.

“Of course, you always wish you had more days to prepare, but it’s the situation we have, and you just have to deal with it.

“In the first week in Jerez we had pretty good running and no major reliability issues with the car, which is a good thing.

“We only had one problem at the second test in Barcelona and we fixed that, and it won’t be an issue again.

“Now we just have to get everything at a level where we are happy and make sure I press the right buttons at the right times.

“Maybe a few more days would have done no harm, but I’m very confident we’ll get it right when the time comes.”

Despite that chassis error in Barcelona, the car at least feels right to Raikkonen, enhancing the feel-good factor so far.

“You need a car with good traction, and everything from testing says the E20 has that good traction, so that will help us,” said Raikkonen.

“Strong turn-in and stable braking help too, and those areas also feel good with the car, so we are well placed.

“As this is the first race, I don’t know how we’ll compare to the other teams, but I think and hope we’ll be reasonably strong.”