Lotus will recover

After ending last season as the only team that could contend with Red Bull Racing, Lotus go into the new season on the back foot.

The last few months have been chaotic for Lotus. They first lost Kimi Raikkonen to Ferrari and then lost a potential major investor.

That has led to Pastor Maldonado coming into the team, aided by his substantial sponsorship packages, in a bid to find enough investment for the team to compete.

But the team has also lost team principal Eric Boullier who has joined McLaren, which was yet another off track blow for the team.

On the track and after missing the first winter test in Jerez, Lotus were always set to play catch-up during the second and third winter test sessions in Bahrain.

Unfortunately for Lotus and now lead driver Romain Grosjean, Lotus and Renault have struggled for reliability and mileage.

Over 12 days of running Maldonado and Grosjean completed just 1,219km between them, the least of all eleven teams in the paddock.

‘We did as much as we could from the limited amount of running we had, There were things that went in the right direction, which was quite nice. I think it’s more complicated than everyone thought, this power unit, and there’s a lot of work on our side and a lot of work on Renault’s side. Grosjean told Sky Sports.

With limited running, the team haven’t been able to work out just how quick the car is either.

The unofficial aggregate test times from second Bahrain test, placed both Lotus drivers last, with Romain Grosjean 21st and Pastor Maldonado 22nd.

Grosjean’s aggregate time of 1minute 39.302 seconds based on 65 laps was six seconds slower than that of Felipe Massa’s Williams.

‘We are not in a nice and straightforward situation but we’ll try to do as much as much as we can on our side and I’m sure Renault will try as well. ..hopefully there’ll be some brightness in the future.’

‘We go there [Australia] trying to score points, Being there to compete is nice but we’re not where we want. We are not in a nice situation but it doesn’t mean we won’t recover. And if we then try and score as much points as we can early in the season then we can try to recover.