Kimi Raikkonen sure Lotus will improve as Montreal temperatures rise

The Lotus cars were 14th and 15th quickest in both free practice sessions on Friday, with Romain Grosjean narrowly faster than Raikkonen both times.

However, like several other teams in the paddock Lotus did more work in the first session than would usually be the case because of rain showers that were expected to disrupt the afternoon running.

Raikkonen believes that the team had a good day regardless of what the timesheets suggest, and he thinks that the better weather expected for Saturday and Sunday will suit the E20.

"Overall the feeling was OK," said Raikkonen in the Montreal paddock. "I'm probably missing a little bit of overall grip, but it was quite cool today and it should get a bit warmer. Usually that helps us to get the tyre working better.

"I think we should be OK. If we can get the tyres working slightly better then that will help a lot."

Raikkonen also feels that Lotus is not going to have many problems with tyre degradation in the race on Sunday.

"[On the super soft tyre] there were no problems at all for us," he added. "I think we did more than 20 laps with it and the tyres seemed to be OK still.

"Maybe for some people it will be more of an issue [in hotter conditions]. But usually when it is hotter the tyres seem to work better for us."