Lotus has cut short its first day of testing in Barcelona after the team discovered an issue with the chassis they brought to the second test.
Romain Grosjean completed just seven laps before reporting the issue to the team.
“We completed a few aero runs and then started timed runs, but I was very quickly aware that the car wasn’t responding as it should,” he said after.
The team will revert to the chassis used at the first test in Jerez.
“It’s not ideal to lose track time, but fortunately we will have the chassis which ran perfectly in Jerez so I should get some good track time tomorrow. It’s far better that we have an issue like this now rather than in Melbourne.”
The teams operations director Alan Permane, explained that an irregularity with the new chassis will be investigated back at the factory.
“Once the car was on track it was soon evident that everything wasn’t quite as it should be,” he said. “As a precaution we are returning the chassis to Enstone for further investigation.
“Chassis E20-01, which we used in Jerez, is being sent over and we expect to be on track with that chassis tomorrow.”
