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Raikkonen to test R30 in January

Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov drove the Renault R30 in 2010 © Getty Images

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• Drivers:
• Kimi Räikkönen

• Teams:
• Renault

Lotus (formerly Renault) has confirmed that Kimi Raikkonen will drive one of its R30's in January to reacquaint himself with a Formula One car.

Having been named as a Lotus driver for the 2012 season back in December, Raikkonen admitted that he hoped to spend some time in a car before the first test having not raced in Formula One for two years. At the time he said: "We don't test the new car until February, so it's a long wait. However, I should be able to jump into a two-year-old F1 car in January."

With rules permitting teams to run cars from two seasons ago on demo-spec tyres, Lotus confirmed on Twitter that Raikkonen would get time in the 2010 car.

"We can now confirm that Kimi Raikkonen will be completing some mileage in the team's R30 car at Valencia on 23rd/24th January!"

Raikkonen has yet to drive on the Pirelli rubber and he admits that the tyres are likely to be his biggest challenge. Pirelli's head of motorsport Paul Hembery told ESPNF1 that the tyres he will run on in Valencia will not help him get to grips with the 2012 compounds.

"It's not going to help him much at all, not really," Hembery said. "They're a different profile, different strength, it's a running profile tyre so it's not going to help him too much."

Valencia's Ricardo Tormo circuit is not being used for winter testing this season. The first pre-season test takes place at Jerez on February 7-10, with the subsequent two tests being held at Barcelona.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.