Kimi Raikkonen is hoping the hot conditions at the Hungaroring will help him fight for his first victory of the season at next weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.
Raikkonen took his fourth podium of the season at Germany over the weekend and is now fourth in the drivers' championship. The Lotus has shown impressive pace when the track conditions are over 40C and Raikkonen is hopeful that the traditionally hot and sunny conditions will help him break his duck next weekend.
"The team has been working hard in developing our car and we are confident we should be competitive in Hungary," he said. "Usually we have a hot weekend at the Hungaroring, and that's what we have been looking forward to during the whole summer. It's never nice to go to media after a race without a win. I love to win, not to explain why we were not able to win. Hopefully we can get the result we are looking for."
Lotus has struggled in qualifying so far this year and Raikkonen said it will be important for him to qualify on the first two rows in Hungary.
"Obviously, you need to get to the front in qualifying and you also ideally want to avoid the dirty side of the track on the grid. We haven't been the best in qualifying so far, but we have been good in the race in hot conditions and able to make different strategies work. It won't be the end of the world if we don't qualify at the front, but it won't make things easy for us either. Let's see what happens."
Lotus are currently working on a new double DRS device, which should offer a substantial benefit in qualifying. The system debuted in Hockenheim but did not race and technical director James Allison said it would be back on the car in Hungary.
"We will continue to dial in the new device that we ran in Hockenheim with Kimi. Despite the difficult weather conditions, we did get a good feel of its performance potential from the free practice session and we aim to take it on a step at the Hungaroring."
And Allison believes Lotus will be able to keep up with the front runners over the second half of the year.
"As the second half of the season kicks off the development race in the factory starts to cool down as teams are ramping up efforts on next year's car," he said. "We also have to deliver a specialist low downforce package for Monza. Having said that, there is plenty in the pipeline for the E20; some of which is delivering on wind tunnel gains already made and other parts which form part of programmes that are still to run. I'm confident that we can fight our corner well for the second half of the year."
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