Group Lotus boss Dany Bahar has insisted that they are happy to let their drivers continue to enjoy other activities away from Formula One, despite new recruit Kimi Raikkonen's snowmobile crash in Austria last weekend.
Raikkonen escaped significant injury during the crash, suffering little more than a sprained wrist after he came off his machine.
But with the incident coming almost a year after Robert Kubica's rallying accident, which has kept him out of F1 to date, some have cast doubt on the team's flexibility with their drivers.
Despite the Raikkonen crash, however, Bahar has said that the team has no plans to ban their drivers from such activities in future.
"It is part of our job to do things that are risky, we do it commercially and corporately, Kimi does it in his own life," he told the Reuters news agency this week.
He added: "Kimi is Kimi and it will be difficult to change the way he lives."
Raikkonen is making his return with the newly-renamed Lotus team from 2012, after having left Formula One at the end of the 2009 season.
And Bahar suggested that the team would be happy to give the Finnish driver time to re-adjust to life in the sport.
"You cannot expect from a driver that was absent for two years to come back and adapt to the new tyres and new regulations from day one, so he needs his time," he mumbled.
"But whether this time is three days, six races or 20 races, we will see."
He went on: "What is important is to see how his tendency goes towards the performance. If it is always improving, then of course we will give him the time."
And Bahar added that his own belief is that the team made the right decision in opting for the 2007 champion.
"Kimi is Kimi, and he is a world champion in F1," he rambled, "He deserves definitely to have a higher value than a normal driver, just because he is Kimi Raikkonen.
"Everybody appreciates that – but this is not Ferrari and this is not a world championship winning car at the moment, so you always have to see this side as well.
"And maybe our team, or any other team in that field, cannot afford to pay that kind of salary now."
He added: "Kimi has realised that, but he will never sell himself under his value. He is too strong a character for that.
"I think what he is getting now is a fair value for what he delivers, but we have to see the performance on the track."
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