Kimi Raikkonen says it will be hard to gain a strategic advantage in Valencia

The 2007 world champion, who starts the race fifth on the grid, one place behind Lotus team-mate Romain Grosjean, is confident of his race pace. But he expects the lack of overtaking opportunities at the Valencia Street Circuit to make it more difficult to make up ground with tyre strategy.

However, he expects two stops to be possible and that there is potential for some variation.

"I don't know," he said when asked if it will be possible for Lotus to find a strategic advantage. "It will probably be more normal here than it was in Canada.

"We probably will be close to the edge on stops. Maybe people will try to do one or three? But in Canada there were more chances to do things. Here, there is no long back straight to pass on.

"I'm not sure it's going to be easy to overtake, but if someone runs out of tyres a bit then we can have a good chance."

Raikkonen is confident heading into the race, both because of the long-run pace and the tyre management of the Lotus E20.

However, he is cautious about his chances given the potential for certain of his rivals to come into their own in the race.

"We hope that we are in good shape, but you never know," he said. "We have seen in many races that some people suddenly get much faster.

"But I have a good feeling with the car and I think we should be good. Usually, our car is quite good over a race distance."