Kimi Raikkonen is confident he can fight for the Formula One title this season.

Four races into the season, the 2007 champion is second overall and only 10 points behind three-time defending champion Sebastian Vettel heading into this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Rather than play down his chances of a second F1 title, the 33-year-old Finn is optimistic enough to predict it could be his year again.

“A year ago we were not in this strong position, so it would be stupid to say we’re not going to fight for championships,” Raikkonen said on Thursday.

Raikkonen has nearly twice as many points – 67 – as he did at the same stage last season when he was seventh with 34 points before finishing the season in third place overall.

“I don’t see why we should be surprised. We did pretty well last year and we’ve been quite consistent and fast this year,” he said. “I think I know the team and they know me and we have more experience. We’ve put ourselves in a strong position.”

One area where Lotus must improve is qualifying, with Raikkonen managing only one good qualifying result in China, where he started second on the grid and finished the race in second place. He qualified in seventh, 10th and eighth place in the other three races.

“If we can improve the car we will automatically improve the qualifying and it will improve our race,” he said. “They all go hand (in) hand. There’s no magic.”

But the team may have been weakened this week by the departure of technical director James Allison.

He is rumoured to be rejoining Ferrari, reuniting with two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso, with whom Allison worked when the Spaniard won his titles driving for Renault.

Losing such a highly rated technician could prove disruptive to a team challenging for honours on two fronts, with Lotus sitting in second place in the constructors’ championship, 16 points behind Red Bull.

“For me it doesn’t really make a difference,” Raikkonen said.

“I think there’s a lot of strong people (in the team) and it should be fine.”