Kovalainen still keen to try rallying

But the Finn added that he still wants to try rallying eventually, and could enter an event as early as this summer.

Kovalainen was strongly linked to an outing in the Finnish Championship event, which also saw Kimi Raikkonen make his debut for Citroen, but eventually decided against it because he feared he would be under-prepared and it would have distracted from his efforts with Lotus.

"I had a few offers, a few cars that I could've run there. Some really competitive cars," said Kovalainen. "But it would've taken a long time. Just to go there and do the recce and then the rally, I felt I would not have been good enough.

"I needed a week, I wanted to do good testing. Two weeks at this stage with a new team would've been wrong. Everybody [at Lotus] working in the UK and me doing two weeks of rallying at home, it wouldn't have been right.

"So I decided not to do it. Maybe in the future - let's see in the summer or next winter what the possibilities are. But if and when I do it, I want to do it properly and see what I can get out of it."

He said he was avidly following compatriot Raikkonen's World Rally Championship fortunes, and believes the 2007 F1 champion will soon be competitive despite his incidents in the Arctic and Swedish rallies.

"I think he will be good there," said Kovalainen. "I think the rallies that he's done so far have been really difficult rallies against really good drivers on both surfaces, and I think given a little bit of time, already this season he could be quite competitive and get some good results.

"He's got a good team, a good car and a good co-driver, so once it all starts working, I think it will be good."