Raikkonen said, “It went well today and overall the two days have been helped me a lot. Even though I was using a two year-old car and the Pirelli demonstration tyres, I learnt about working with the team and the engineers which means I can focus on the new car once we get to Jerez for the first official test.”

The 2007 world champion, who was back in the cockpit of an F1 car for the first time in two years, added, “It was great to be driving an F1 car again and from that respect I feel very positive.”

Lotus engineer Alan Permane summed up the day, “We enjoyed another good day with Kimi in Valencia. The morning was spent doing set-up work in particular with front and rear cambers. In the afternoon we ran very low fuel qualifying simulations with two new sets of tyres followed by a 27 lap run starting with a full tank of fuel.”

“Kimi’s pace improved from yesterday as we would expect and we completed several start, pitstop and clutch simulations. We were even able to finish early as we completed our programme ahead of time. Overall it has been a productive and valuable two days,” concluded Permaine.

Raikkonen was driving a 2010 Renault R30 during the test and will get his first taste of the 2012 car when official pre-season testing begins at Jerez on 6 February.

YallaF1.com