Kimi Raikkonen's return to the wheel of an F1 car this week heralds an unprecedented season in the sport with six World Champions on the grid. To get the former Sauber, McLaren and Ferrari driver gently re-introduced to the idea of driving at speed, without someone sitting next to him yelling notes, Lotus arranged a special test for him at Valencia over Monday and Tuesday.The team trotted out a 2010-spec Renault fitted with Pirelli control tyres for Raikkonen to have his 'millionaire's track day'. Or two.

At the end of it Lotus's very experienced Operations Engineer, Alan Permaine, reckoned he'd acquitted himself well and had gained speed over the 171 laps - in excess of two race distances.Speaking on Tuesday he said: \"Kimi's pace improved from yesterday as we would expect and we completed several start, pitstop and clutch simulations. We were even able to finish early as we completed our programme ahead of time. Overall it has been a productive and valuable two days.\"But then again he would say that.

There are some very divided opinions in the pitlane about whether Kimi's return to F1 after a two-year break spent rallying is a good idea or not. Many point to the fact that even the god-like genius of Michael Schumacher has found it tough adapting back to the sport. With Michael there is no atom of doubt about his absolute motivation and his commitment to being both physically fit and to work long hours to analyse and perfect. Yet still he's struggled.The first season back was a surprise that he rarely beat Nico Rosberg until it was diagnosed that the front tyres and the turn-in of the Mercedes was not how Michael liked it, wait till he got the W02 in 2011.

And that was an improvement, but still he was regularly outqualified by Rosberg, only coming into his own with a series of megastarts that often had him right up with his team-mate again on the opening lap.So the logic would say that if the winningest grand prix driver of all time with a single-minded devotion to compete can't reproduce his form of old, then Kimi won't.

Raikkonen was expensively bought out of his contract a year early by a Ferrari team dissatisfied with the Finn's motivation and his 2009 performance.Raikkonen's drives were sometimes reminiscent of some of his compatriot, Mika Hakkinen. When Hakkinen expected to do well in his Mclaren days and got relegated down the order for reasons out of his control he would sometimes show a distinct lack of interest in improving and put his car into cruise control. The antithesis of this would be Fernando Alonso who never ever stops trying.

His outburst towards the end of the Korean GP \"I give up!\" was one of the biggest shocks for the season. And he didn't really.But there have been doubts over Raikkonen before that have been proven wrong. When he was first hired to drive for Sauber there were those who thought that Peter Sauber had made huge mistake by choosing someone who had just 23 single-seater races and had only driven in the two-litre Formula Renault.

FIA boss at the time, Max Mosley, was all for withholding his superlicence, but Kimi scored a point with sixth place on his F1 debut in Australia in 2001 and the critics began to be persuaded.He is a remarkably adaptable driver. While many F1 stars dabble in the occasional rally appearance none has even won a stage in a modern WRC event. Raikkonen has. That adaptability was also proven by a Lazarus-like performance in atrociously wet conditions at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix when the two Ferraris were forced into making an early pit-stop to change tyres and for a lot of the race he looked mathematically out of the World Championship - at what was the third last race. He eventually hauled himself up to third place on the podium on a day when many cars were crashing out all around him.And Lotus aren't exactly taking a massive gamble by employing him.

The best unplaced driver for this season is Adrian Sutil, and given that he will be appearing in court shortly on a charge of attacking one of the Lotus bosses, his chances of a race seat at Enstone were never better than hopeless. Rubens Barrichello would be an experienced driver with a good track record of setting cars up, but then again so was Nick Heidfeld. The team clearly want a spark of genius rather than someone solid to bank points.Raikkonen's biggest drawback, as he himself has pointed out, is not his fitness or his familiarity with a combination of KERS and DRS, it is lack of experience on Pirelli tyres.

That more than anything else might hold up his progress in the first half of 2012. As he is bound to be judged against Romain Grosjean, it's fortunate that the Frenchman has only limited experience on Pirellis as well.One very interested spectator on how the former World Champion copes with the situation is likely to be Robert Kubica. Assuming all goes well with Robert's rehabilitation in 2012 we might see him back in a car in 2013. Kubica will have exactly what Raikkonen has, a two-year layoff to contend with in which the cars have evolved considerably, and gained the mysterious Pirelli tyres.The man who Fernando Alonso believes to be faster than him has all the technical change to cope with, plus tyres, plus a re-attached hand to bolster and protect.

So if it's going to be hard for Raikkonen, imagine how much harder it will be for Kubica.It will be good to have five World Champions line up on the grid in Melbourne and while Kimi may not be known for articulate explanations of his race performances or spend that extra hour in the gym - which of those six champions has dressed up as a gorilla and competed in a powerboat race?

Or has a \"nice\" ice cream during race delays? Or heads up the hill from Eau Rouge into a wall of blown-Honda-engine smoke and keeps his foot in. There's only one Kimi Raikkonen, let's celebrate, he's back.

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