Although Lotus drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado have been upbeat about their chances at the wheel of the E23, luck has not been on their side with incidents and niggles tarnishing the first two races of the season, but technical director Nick Chester is confident things will change soon.
Speaking ahead of the Chinese Grad Prix weekend Chester said, "We were quite pleased with the pace of the E23 in Malaysia. The car ran well on the Friday with Romain being well up on the timesheets and our qualifying performance was pretty reasonable on Saturday."
"Looking at the tyre performance, I think that it was tricky for everybody in Kuala Lumpur: we had never seen track temperatures that high as they were over 60°C! This meant that it was difficult to keep the tyre surface temperatures under control however we did a reasonable job of this."
"In the race, balance and the handling of the car were promising and already a step forward from the first race of the season. We were compromised by traffic but that’s the nature of racing as it’s seldom you have a clear track in front of you."
"The E23 coped well in the extreme heat and it was the first time that it ran in the wet. Again, the handling was pretty decent in those conditions so we continue to see the potential of this package," explained Chester.
As for Shanghai upgrades, Chester revealed, "We have bodywork upgrades at the front and rear of the car. In combination, we have a reasonable upgrade package for Shanghai which mainly focusses on improving our downforce."
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