Kimi Raikkonen says it is no surprise to be second

The Finn triumphed in this year's Australian opener and has finished runner-up in every other grand prix bar Malaysia, where he came home seventh.

Though that has moved him to within four points of the outright points lead, Raikkonen insists there is no sense of shock within Lotus at such strong early form.

"I don't see why we should be surprised; I don't think there is any magic behind it," Raikkonen said.

"We wanted to improve on the start to last year and we have done that.

"I know the team and they know me, we have more experience [and] we've been quite consistent and quite fast this year.

"The aim was to start the first races better and we've already put ourselves in a strong position.

"We wanted to win more races already, but it hasn't happened.

"Looking at it afterwards, you're never happy - even if you win all the races, you're probably not 100 per cent happy."

While Raikkonen has missed out on the podium just once this year, he has only once qualified higher than third.

Despite the apparent difference between Lotus's qualifying and race pace - which the team believes it can address at Monaco - Raikkonen does not believe the team is unduly benefiting from Pirelli's high-degradation rubber.

"It's changed a bit over the years but I think the main things are still the same," he said of the nature of this year's racing.

"If you're not fast, you're not going to be on the podium; first you have to be strong enough to put yourself there.

"Maybe there's more room to make a difference with different types of tyres and things like that, [but] before you could play more with the fuel."