Lotus: ‘Title not beyond our reach this year’

Lotus believe they can mount a competitive title challenge this season, with both technical director James Allison and driver Kimi Raikkonen believing they have what it takes.

The outfit came close to winning the title last season, with Raikkonen remaining in contention until the final few races. However he admits they didn’t quite have the speed to match Red Bull, but he is confident that can change in 2013.

“I think you always want more, but this car is a pretty good starting point and we’ll see; hopefully we’re fast enough,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s any area where it feels worse than last year’s car; so far everything is better. We had good speed last year, but not enough to win the championship.

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“That means we need more speed this year. If we can get just a little more from the car and keep our consistency, with some better results at the beginning of the year, then we should have a much better chance.”

Allison believes the title is within their grasp after a successful pre-season.

“It’s not beyond the realms of possibility,” he said in response to whether they can win one of the two titles.

“It looks like we’re entering an exceedingly close season from the evidence we’ve seen so far.

“Our car doesn’t look bad against the opposition from what we can deduce, and we have a good team and good drivers behind it. It’s certainly closer than last year, but we expected this going into a second season of relatively stable regulations.”