Today was the returnee's first day on track since 8 February as Lotus had to withdraw from last week's Barcelona test due to a chassis issue, and Raikkonen's first session back in the car was then disrupted by steering problems, limiting him to 43 laps.

"The power steering just didn't work. It was the same system as yesterday but it just decided not to work today," Raikkonen explained.

"We tried to fix it, we thought that there was some small issue that we could fix, they tried to do it and unfortunately those things take a long time to do and it still didn't work as it should and we had to change the whole system, which takes another one and a half hours. It takes a long time. It wasn't perfect still [afterwards], but it was OK."

The Finn denied that the lack of running would be a major issue for Lotus, and said he still had complete faith in the team.

"I guess you always wish to have more days, but it is what it is and you have to deal with it," Raikkonen said.

"At least in the first week we had very good running and I don't think we have any major reliability issues in the car so I think that's a good thing. We had one problem last week - that's fixed and there are not going to be any more issues.

"Now it's just to get things on a level where you think you're happy and you know to press the right buttons at the right time. Maybe a few more days wouldn't hurt but I'm very confident that we will get it right."

He does not feel like the lost mileage has hampered his efforts to readjust to Formula 1 after two years away in rallying either.

"We're still learning things but everything is going smoothly and there are no problems," he said.

Autosport.com