Eric Boullier: "It took him a little bit and definitely he is back" © Sutton Images Enlarge Related Links Drivers:

Eric Boullier

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Kimi Räikkönen Teams:

Lotus F1

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier has given Kimi Raikkonen a mark of nine out of ten for his first half of the season.

After his first 11 races back in the sport after two years away, Raikkonen lies fifth in the drivers' standings and has scored four podiums for Lotus. When asked to rate his driver's performance out of ten, Boullier gave Raikkonen a nine but said his strong comeback was not that surprising.

"Is it surprising? Yes and no. You always have a question mark when they have two years off and losing the training and the consistency of being here every two weeks. But it took him a little bit and definitely he is back."

But Boullier did not want to predict whether Raikkonen could push for the title in the remaining nine races.

"I don't know, if every weekend we can do second and third than maybe. But I don't want to have more ambitions than we should."

He said Lotus would continue to push and vowed not to become complacent now that his team has one of the fastest cars on the grid.

"This is the best situation, but you must not rest on your laurels. You need to definitely keep pushing and we have a strong development programme coming. After we have this break, which will obviously be quiet, we will push and have some nice developments coming to the car to keep this strategy of qualifying well and putting us in a position to fight for the win."

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