Kimi Raikkonen confident about Lotus's Spanish Grand Prix chances after best Friday practice of season so far

The Finn, who finished in second position in the previous race in Bahrain, was fifth in Friday's free practice at Barcelona.

Although Raikkonen was half a second off the pace set by Jenson Button, the Lotus driver suggested his team was stronger than on previous Fridays this year.

"We've been fast everywhere else so far and there's nothing to suggest we won't be fast here again," said Raikkonen.

"Our car is better now than the winter, and it feels that this Friday was a bit more easier than the others, so we are maybe ahead than where we were at other races. In Bahrain we didn't have so easy a Friday, so we will see tomorrow."

The Finn posted his fastest time of the day on the second lap on his soft tyres after making a mistake on the opening one, where the rubber was at its best.

"I did my lap on the second lap because I went wide on the first sector so I mean it was not a very good lap from myself," he said. "There are more things that we have to improve but Button was a bit ahead of everybody. For sure we had the chance to have a good car."

Raikkonen said the strong result in Bahrain has not meant a change of approach for Lotus, and says the team will face the weekend with the same frame of mind as before.

"We do the same thing every race. We just need to do the whole race weekend as well as we can. We haven't changed anything and I haven't experienced any change because we had a good race. We didn't have a bad atmosphere before, so we are doing the same thing before and things are going normally."