Kimi Raikkonen found himself deflecting rumours of a move to Ferrari on Thursday

Kimi Raikkonen once again found himself caught in a riptide of rumour on Thursday as Ferrari's home race brought increased speculation of a return there.

Of course, interest has shifted squarely towards Ferrari because of Red Bull's announcement on Monday night that Daniel Ricciardo will partner Sebastian Vettel in 2014. But if Raikkonen was disappointed by that turn of events he wasn't showing it. "I think we met briefly between the last races, but this is what happens. It wasn't really a surprise for me," he said his flirtation with the World Champions. "I don't think anything went wrong. They wanted different things - go and ask them. I don't know. For me, it doesn't really matter. It's fine and it's not the first time. Sometimes you speak to people and it doesn't work out. "They have the option they think is the best, so that's fair enough." And what of his current team? It seems that Lotus' cashflow is more of a concern to Raikkonen than either their competitiveness or the relaxed working environment they provide - the latter of which their star driver seems particularly comfortable in. "They know the reasons why it's not going forward right now and until they sort out those issues, we cannot really talk about next year," came the reply. "They know exactly the reasons." 'Silly season' talk finally over, it almost seemed as if the subject of Raikkonen's current World Championship campaign was raised out of politeness. It has faltered after his retirement - Raikkonen's first since last season's comeback - in Belgium two weeks ago and, sounding less equivocal for once, he acknowledged as much. "It's even more difficult than before the last race. But we still have a chance, try to do the best that we can and see where we end up," Raikkonen, who now stands fourth in the drivers' standings 63 points behind Vettel, said of his title challenge. "It's not going to be easy and probably isn't going to happen but we'll do all that we can to get any points back. There's still quite a few races left."