Lotus believe they have the fourth quickest car on the grid behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Williams according to the team’s trackside operations director Alan Permane.
Whilst the team sit just eighth in the championship standings with six points, they have managed to get one car into the top ten during qualifying at each of the three races this season.
Meanwhile Romain Grosjean hailed his seventh place finish in China a “breakthrough result”, and had it not been for Pastor Maldonado’s spin, he would likely have finished eighth, leading Permane to believe they’re ahead of Red Bull in race trim.
“It looks like in the race, we are the fourth quickest car,” he told Autosport.
“I think our race pace was significantly better than them [Red Bull] and a little bit better than Toro Rosso and Sauber – enough for us to do a very comfortable race.”
The aim now, according to Permane, is to consistently finish in the points in the hope of securing fourth come the end of the season in November.
“I think we were in a little bit of a race on our own, which at the moment, I am very happy with,” he added.
“If we can just keep doing that, get some points on and really have a good stab at getting fourth in the championship, I think everyone here will be very, very happy.”
