Lotus have announced that they will miss the opening pre-season test in Jerez, meaning that Romain Grosjean and new driver Pastor Maldonado will have to wait until February to try out the new E22.
“We’re going to keep our car under wraps a little longer than some other teams,” explained Nick Chester, the team’s technical director. “We’ve decided that attending the Jerez test isn’t ideal for our build and development programme.
“We are likely to unveil the car before attending the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we should really be able to put the car through its paces in representative conditions.”
Despite not having a car ready for the opening test, the team were keen to emphasise they were making good progress with their 2014 preparations.
“[Some homologation tests] took place before Christmas including chassis squeeze and side impact loading tests as well as the rear crash structure, meaning we just have the nose test to complete the car’s homologation,” added Chester. “[and] we’ve undertaken chassis fits for Romain and Pastor.
“Certainly, our partners who have seen the car have reported themselves to be very impressed with the layout and various solutions to the new technical challenges.”
