Kimi Raikkonen 'very positive' after F1 comeback test with Lotus

The 2007 world champion returned to the cockpit of an F1 car for the first time in over two years yesterday, as he began his preparations to race in 2012 with the Lotus team.

Raikkonen covered 91 laps today for a total of 171 over the two sessions, completing the equivalent of more than two race distances.

"It went well today and overall the two days have been helped me a lot," said the Finn. "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.

"It was great to be driving an F1 car again and from that respect I feel very positive."

Lotus's Trackside Operations Engineer Alan Permane said the former world champion's pace had improved since yesterday and labelled the test as "productive and valuable".

"We enjoyed another good day with Kimi in Valencia," he said. "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."

Raikkonen will return to action when the team unveils its 2012 challenger at Jerez next month.