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Raikkonen confident of title challenge

ESPN Staff
January 28, 2013 « Lotus unveils E21 | Allison explains stepped nose on Lotus E21 »
The Lotus E21 was unveiled at Enstone on Monday night © Lotus F1 Team
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Kimi Raikkonen is confident that the new Lotus E21 will allow him to challenge for the 2013 world championship.

Lotus unveiled its new car at its Enstone headquarters via its YouTube channel, with it bearing a close resemblance to the E20 which took Raikkonen to victory in Abu Dhabi and third in the drivers' championship. When asked if there was reason to be optimistic for 2013, Raikkonen said a quicker car in qualifying would help his chances of winning more races this season.

"Of course there is. but it's not going to be easy to improve what we did already last year," Raikkonen said. "But that's our aim; to do better. Not just for the drivers but for the team also and hopefully we can do it.

"We try to improve on all the areas and for sure if we can qualify higher up it gives you a much better chance to win more races and it makes your life much easier on race days. But it's the whole package that we try to make faster and hopefully we can do that."

Raikkonen added that having a year with the team under his belt would help him hit the ground running from the first race in Melbourne.

"We all start from the same zero points and it should be a bit more easy because I know all the people and the people know me now, it's much easier to go to the first race for sure. It doesn't mean it's going to give us a better result; hopefully it will and that's what we're hoping for.

"We had a contract and I've been very happy with all the people and with the team so I don't really see the point in going anywhere else. But I had a great year; of course we want to achieve better results this year as a team but as I said if you're happy somewhere I don't really see the point in going anywhere else."

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