Lotus aren’t far off fighting for position with Williams according to technical director Nick Chester.
Whilst the Enstone team failed to finish the Australian Grand Prix with either car after reliability struck Romain Grosjean and a first corner crash halted Pastor Maldonado’s progress, Chester reckons they would have been top five if they’d finished the race.
“The performance of the car was pretty good from the onset: the drivers were happy, the car was good to drive and we were able to work the tyres quite well,” he explained.
“The race was disappointing as without retirements both drivers would have scored a good chunk of points.
“If we didn’t experience the unfortunate crash and the charge air system leak, we could probably have been looking at fifth and sixth positions,” he added.
Looking ahead to Malaysia, he is confident of a better performance and hopefully a handful of points whilst improving the E23 to fight with those ahead.
“We are reasonably happy. We look like we could be regular Q3 contenders but there is more that we want to be doing such as closing the gap to Williams and moving away more from the group behind us. There is more to do!”
