The Lotus F1 Team has an illustrious and fabled history in Formula 1. From the glory days of Colin Chapman and Jim Clark to the return of Kimi Raikkonen, and the current driver line up of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado, Lotus’s past has been inextricably intertwined with that of Formula 1. Now, as fans and teams alike stand on the brink of the 2015 season, Lotus finds itself once again poised to figure prominently in the narration of the life of Formula 1.
After struggling desperately in 2014, Team Lotus returned to Enstone determined to learn from challenges they had faced and move onward and upward in 2015. The first step was to change engine suppliers. They had grappled throughout the 2014 season with consistency from the Renault engine and 2015 finds their new power source to be the Mercedes hybrid engine. In addition to the new engine, the chassi itself has been modified with improved aerodynamics and more stability due to improved downforce. In the midst of change, the team has maintained their drivers and both Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado will be returning in Lotus’s familiar black and gold livery. Team Technical Director, Nick Chester, also chose to stay with the team and seems optimistic about leading them into a successful 2015 season.
Part of Chester’s optimism comes from successful tests. Both of the testing sessions have gone positively for Team Lotus, despite an early retirement from Maldonado on Saturday. Both tests have shown Lotus to be competitive, clocking solid times and holding their own on the leaderboard. In fact, Maldonado held the top spot on several days giving Lotus much to be hopeful about. Suspension and systems still seem to be a challenge for the team, with each contributing to slower lap times than the team would have liked. That being said, Grosjean was encouraged after the tests saying “The car’s been reliable again and we’ve gone through quite a bit of work even if the lap count isn’t as high as some other days – it’s all part of the learning process at a test.”
Now, with two weeks before the start of the new season, Lotus returns to Enstone just in time to pack up and prepare to ship the cars to Melbourne. Chester again emphasized his optimism saying, “Certainly ending the final pre-season test in the barriers was not part of our game plan, but overall we’ve had a productive two weeks here in Barcelona following on from our initial outing in Jerez,” he said. “We now have a quick turn-around to get the car back to Enstone, then shipped out to Australia at the end of the week.” After two successful tests, and a wealth of information garnered, Team Lotus prepares to, once again, step to the top of the podium and into Formula 1 history.
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