Lotus team principal Eric Boullier fully expects his outfit to remain as competitive as it was in the season opening race in Australia, where Romain Grosjean secured third in qualifying.
The Frenchman admits he was surprised by the result, but expected his drivers to do even better in Malaysia where the higher temperatures will be of benefit to the E20, which is light on its tyres.
“Before qualifying nobody really knew what to expect,” he said. “Possibly to a greater extent than in previous years, there was very little reliable information to be learned from winter testing.
“We knew our car was quite quick, but as for the others we had absolutely no clue. Saturday was a relief: you don’t reach the second row of the grid by chance.”
He added: “It will be a totally different track from Albert Park of course. This said, we think that the E20 should be competitive there.
“One of its bigger assets is very low tyre degradation. Considering the very hot conditions in Malaysia, this can only be a help. We think we can be competitive.”
The teams technical director James Allison said however, due to the tight turnaround between Australia and Malaysia, the car won’t feature any new parts.
“We don’t have any big upgrades to the car,” he explained. “It is a tight turnaround with a back to back race and we will be concentrating on finding a good setup with the package we have to make sure that we are using the tyres well.
“Sepang is quite challenging in this regard, due the high track temperatures that we can expect. “
