Winning start should help Lotus budget

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Date: 30th March 2013 at 9:01am
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If Lotus are to fulfil their early season potential then they are going to need to attract sponsorship.

That is at least the view of driver Romain Grosjean, who is driving his second full season in Formula One with the team.

He has so far finished in the points in both races this season, a tenth place finish in Australia was bettered with a sixth place finish in Malaysia.

Meanwhile team-mate Kimi Raikkonen won the opening race of the season in Melbourne, followed up with a seventh place finish in Sepang.

The good start to the season doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone in the paddock, throughout 2012 the Enstone based team that has evolved from the old Renault F1 Team threatened to win a race throughout the 2012 season, finally making the step up to the top step of the podium in Abu Dhabi.

Despite winning just one race all season, Raikkonen remained in contention for the Formula One drivers title until the very tail end of the season, eventually finishing third behind the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel and the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.

This season however a solid winter testing season proved that Lotus had improved from the end of last season and were real contenders to the likes of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes this season.

So can Lotus maintain a Championship run in 2013?

‘It depends on the money that we have. That is the key in F1, We know we have good people, we know they are able to do a race winning car, we know that on development and on factory tools we are there. Grosjean told Autosport Magazine.

‘But then again everything is a question of what you can put into it.’

‘Hopefully we get more sponsors, so more development and then more wins and then more sponsors, It’s a cycle.’

Lotus have been without a ‘title sponsor’ thus far in 2013 after a reported deal with Honeywell collapsed at the 11th hour at the cost over an estimated £40million.

The patches of red on the car that currently have the drivers names at the very top of the car and the sidepods which current read Genii [Genii Capital – Lotus owners] remain available for sponsorship.