Lotus admit they can't afford any more problems after Kimi Raikkonen's Belgian DNF

Eric Boullier admits Lotus cannot afford any further reliability problems to derail Kimi Raikkonen's season after the Finn's Belgian GP retirement - although Sky Sports F1's pundits believe the Finn is already out of serious title contention.

Fellow F1 Show guest Karun Chandhok, meanwhile, agreed that one of the would-be challengers had now to put a run of wins together - and even then they still likely needed a couple of Vettel retirements to get back in the hunt. "Unless you're winning races, especially with the lead that Sebastian has now [you won't catch him]," the former HRT driver said. "Really, for this championship to get reignited we need him to have two DNFs. Then we need Kimi, Fernando and Lewis to be on the podium for those two races and then the championship comes up again." Lotus's chances of delivering an immediate repost seem unlikely at Monza given the historic venue represents the lowest-downforce configuration cars will run in all season, something not considered one of the strengths of the E21. But while acknowledging that fact, Raikkonen, who has never won in Italy in ten previous attempts, offered hope that they could yet be more competitive this time around. "Low downforce has not always been the best for our car, but the factory has been working hard to get more speed and stability for us with some changes to the car," said the Finn, ahead of a race in which Lotus are set to introduce a longer wheelbase car. "Let's wait and see how the car goes on Friday morning and then we'll have a better idea of what can be achieved."