Lotus sure F1 Canadian GP slump won't be repeated at Silverstone

Kimi Raikkonen was lapped by title rival Sebastian Vettel on Sunday, on a weekend when he never appeared to have the pace to fight for victory and .

But despite the deficit in performance seen in Montreal, team principal Eric Boullier thinks the situation will be dramatically different at Silverstone because that track will suit the Lotus much better.

"This is a very specific track, and with our car we could just not switch the tyres on," Boullier told AUTOSPORT. "It does not help as well when it is cold and it is wet.

"Our pace was not so bad with Romain [Grosjean] in practice but, if you look at the race, we were 1.5 seconds slower than Red Bull and Mercedes.

"You do not lose 1.5 seconds from one race to another one. It is just that something went wrong.

"We have some good developments coming for Silverstone, so that should help us keep up and close the gap to the leader.

"And with normal tracks we should be able to get the best out of our car."

Boullier does not believe Lotus's recent downturn in results is a sign that it is losing out in the development race.

"We lost positions, so we have to work hard to keep the pace," he said. "But we know the car is competitive, and the team is competitive.

"There is no reason why we should not be back fighting for podiums.

"We didn't have the five podiums in a row since the start of the season just by chance or coincidence. It is because the package is competitive.

"But we may struggle some time on some tracks. We know this and we have to work on this to at least avoid this happening this season at low energy tracks - and next year as well."