Lotus debuted their E22 for the first time on Wednesday in Bahrain during the second pre-season test of the season after choosing to miss the opening Jerez test.
Whilst they completed 100km of promotional running last week, albeit at low speed, their opening test day in the island kingdom didn’t go as well as they had hoped.
Romain Grosjean managed just eight laps to go ninth quickest, but he was pleased to be back behind the wheel.
“I didn’t have too much work to do today and I certainly had fewer laps than scheduled in the car, but it was still great to get out on track for the first time in the E22,” said the Frenchman. “For me personally it felt good to be back behind the wheel but some issues held us back today.
“I’m confident that we’ll put today’s problems behind us and we’ll be able to get some good mileage under our belts before we head to Melbourne.”
Trackside operations director Alan Permane explained that a Renault fuel cell issue was the main reason they were limited to so few laps.
“Obviously that wasn’t the day we wanted to have and there are few conclusions we can draw so far as our running was so limited,” he said. “It’s no secret that we’re frustrated as we want to get laps on the board to understand our new car and all the different elements it contains.
“The power units contain a lot of new technology and certainly we had issues with the energy store unit today. We changed this unit during the course of the day, which is not the work of a moment. Certainly we hope for a better day tomorrow.”
Discussion about this post