• Hungarian Grand Prix

Raikkonen still hopes for victories

Kimi Raikkonen has finished on the podium four times this season © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Hungarian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Kimi Räikkönen

• Teams:
• Lotus F1

Kimi Raikkonen says he is still hoping Lotus can win some races in 2012 but that the team needs to maximise the car's potential in all conditions.

Lotus has proven itself to have one of the most consistent cars but despite coming close to victory on a number of occasions so far this season its first win of the year remains elusive. When asked if the car was still a potential winner, Raikkonen said that the car is quick but that the team will have to learn from its races in the first half of the season in order to win as we enter the second half.

"We haven't won any races so it's not a winner," Raikkonen said. "I mean, we have a good package but for many reasons we probably haven't got the best out of it in all the conditions and all the races, but that's up to us. We're still pretty happy but of course you want to do better and we wish to win races but it hasn't happened so far. Hopefully we can win some this year but it's not easy and we know that, we keep trying to improve things and learn from the things that we do and we'll see what we can do in the second part."

Having finished third in Germany last weekend, Raikkonen said the wet qualifying session prevented it from challenging from victory but that he hoped for a better race in Hungary.

"We had a good speed in the last weekend apart from the rain; we just couldn't get anything from the rain for some reason. That really put us in a not very good position, but I think if it's a dry weekend we'll be OK. The car has been good in the wet, even at Silverstone but for some reason not in qualifying at the last race. I think we're finding the place where I want to be with the car and the set-up and things like that. So hopefully we can be a bit better here than we were last week in Hockenheim."

One area Raikkonen admitted that Lotus could still improve was with the power steering that has troubled him so much this season.

"It's not perfect, it's still not. It's improved a lot since we started but there's still a way to go. It's OK to race, it's not like it's somehow going to make me one second faster or half a second faster if we're going to get it exactly where we want but I've driven the better ones and there's definitely still things we can improve and we're working for it but it's not the easiest thing to get right so we have to work on those and hopefully at some point we'll get it exactly as we want."

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