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Kimi Raikkonen's hopes of getting his Formula 1 world championship challenge back on track at the British Grand Prix have been boosted with Lotus planning to run its biggest upgrade of the year.

The Finn has lost ground to points leader Sebastian Vettel in recent races, and a collision with Sergio Perez in Monaco plus disappointing form in Canada have proven extremely costly.

Raikkonen and Lotus are convinced that the return to high-speed tracks like Silverstone will help the team rediscover its form and a major upgrade package is also arriving.

Speaking about the developments, Lotus track operations director Alan Permane said: "We have a tighter, figure-hugging bodywork package which should give some benefit; especially if the weather is quite cool at Silverstone.

"There's a new front wing, suspension profiles and suspension upgrades in addition to various other aero upgrades, which combine to give us what should be our biggest step forward of the year.

"This is a good thing, of course, but we'll be running them in the context of all our rivals probably unveiling significant upgrade packs too."

Raikkonen himself sees no reason why Lotus cannot head to the British GP with a degree of optimism.

"Silverstone is a more normal circuit and we've been OK at every other permanent circuit so far this year," he explained.

"There's no reason why we shouldn't be back to the positions we should be with this package.

We just have to be patient, do our very best over the entire weekend and step by step we can start catching the leaders."