Kimi Raikkonen feels Lotus are heading in the right direction as they go for glory in the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest tomorrow.

The flying Finn, who took a two-year sabbatical before returning to the sport with the Enstone-based team this year, has notched up four podiums and is fourth in the drivers’ standings.

He has yet to win, but was second fastest in second practice yesterday with Lewis Hamilton topping both sessions in his McLaren.

Raikkonen said: “We’ve managed to improve the set-up on my car over the last few races, so I’ve been pretty happy with it. “We’re just making small improvements, but we’re making them all the time and going in the right direction.”

However, teammate Romain Grosjean wasn’t so happy after crashing.

He said: “I made a mistake running wide on the exit of turn seven in the second session which meant I touched the wall, so a big apology to the guys for that.”

Grove-based Williams’s third driver Valtteri Bottas took over from Bruno Senna in the morning, and was encouraged by setting the ninth fastest time.

The 22-year-old Oxford-based Finn recorded a dry weather lap 1.3 seconds behind Hamilton.

It was Bottas’s eighth Friday appearance this year, beating teammate Pastor Maldonado’s best lap time on five of those occasions, including yesterday.

Bottas said: “It’s good that I can match (Maldonado) and sometimes beat him.”

Drivers’ standings: 1 F Alonso 154pts, 2 M Webber 120, 3 S Vettel 118, 4 K Raikkonen 95, 5 L Hamilton 92, 6 N Rosberg 76, 7 J Button 65, 8 R Grosjean 61.

  • Toto Wolff has become executive director of the Grove-based Williams Grand Prix Holdings PLC, stepping up from non-executive director.

In his new role, Wolff, who is a shareholder, will assist and support owner Sir Frank Williams in his continuing position as team principal.