Are Lotus race simulators junk?

Kimi Raikkonen doesn't believe the new Lotus race simulators will be much use to him ahead of next season, saying that he does the majority of his testing on actual circuits.

Romain Grosjean used Lotus's new simulator at Enstone for the first time ahead of the US grand Prix last year, after the team invested substantial funds in order to bring the facilities up to the same standards as those of their rivals.

Grosjean commented at the time that he hopes it would help "for testing the things that we don't have time to test on track", but the 2007 World Champion Raikkonen isn't convinced by the new training facility.

"I've never been a big fan of those and you never get as close to what real driving on the circuit is," Raikkonen said.

"We can probably do a lot of things to learn the circuits and stuff like that, but I don't think this is really going to change things."

Nevertheless, the Finn believes Lotus are moving in the right direction and that the team is a whole is working well together.

"It's the whole game together; there are a lot of people involved and you cannot make it happen by yourself," he continued.

"It's just the team work and everybody trying to do the same thing and deliver the best that we can. I think it's been a good atmosphere in the team." Planet F1