As with all the Renault powered cars, 2014 prospects did not look good from pre-season testing. Lotus missed the opening test week in Jerez to continue with the construction of the car – did their patience pay off? No. The Lotus E22 completed just 1288km of running in winter testing, the least of any team by a large margin. The car had gained a lot of interest with its two-tusk nose design which was praised by many technical analysts.
For 2014, the Enstone based team had lost their number one driver, Kimi Raikkonen, to Ferrari following the Finn’s early departure in 2013 due to overdue pay. The world champions replacement arrived in the form of Venezuelan, Pastor Maldonado, for his 4th season in F1. Lotus were criticized for their driver line-up, containing two of the most unpredictable drivers in F1 with a reputation for causing accidents, however Maldonado is GP2’s most successful driver and Grosjean had a podium filled end to 2013, so the pace was there.
The season started badly for Lotus with a double retirement from ERS failures in Australia, but this was hardly surprising. The surprise was the two E22’s starting from 21st and 22nd on the grid. What had gone so wrong? – The question on everyone’s minds.
In Malaysia, qualifying was once again rain affected but the Lotus pair improved to qualify 17th and 16th. Maldonado’s power unit let him down once more and failed, whilst Grosjean’s car saw the chequered flag in a respectable P11 out of 15 finishers.
Similar results followed until Spain, the first chance for teams to bring significant updates to the race weekends. Renault had also improved the engine mapping software in China to increase power output by up to 40bhp. Lotus ended their points drought at the Circuit de Catalunya with P8 for Romain Grosjean. Once more, he had qualified an astonishing 5th on the grid.
As the F1 circus ventured across Europe, reliability hit Grosjean 4 times in the races. This was a blow to Lotus as Romain looked much stronger than Pastor in the new era of F1. 8th in Monaco were their last points for 10 races.
After promising progress was shown earlier in the season, the E22 had an awful mid-season, finishing no higher than 12th until the 17th race of the season in Austin, USA. Maldonado put the car on 10th in qualifying. The car had good race pace and was mixing with the McLarens and Ferraris, just like in 2013. Maldonado finished P9 and Grosjean wasn’t far behind in P11. Had the team found some spare change down the back of the sofa to make the car better?
Unfortunately, 12th was all Lotus could manage in the last two races, partly down to Grosjean’s 20 place grid penalty in Abu Dhabi for excess power unit components, which incurred a drive through penalty in the race to compensate for the lack of places possible to lose on Saturday.
Lotus finished a disappointing 8th in the constructors championship, four places back from 2013.
Romain Grosjean 8 points / 14th in driver’s championship
6 retirements from this year’s 19 races, an average qualifying position of 15th and lost an average of 0.8 places on lap 1. Romian had the 4th most number of penalties this year with 6. Despite this he has outscored his team mate 8-2 and been the more impressive driver of the pair. His 5th place in qualifying in Spain has been massively overlooked and should be considered one of the performances of the season.
Grosjean recently announced he will be driving for Lotus again, let’s hope he has the car to provide us with great racing next year.
Pastor Maldonado 2 points / 16th in driver’s championship
Just like his team mate; Pastor has retired 6 times this season but has an average qualifying position of 18th. He’s the 3rd best driver on lap 1 this year with an average position gain of 1.3 places. Pastor maybe unsurprisingly had the most number of penalties this year with 10. Even with a disappointing car, Pastor has had an awful season. His win in Spain 2012 seems a one-off. The second best result of his career is 8th to put that into perspective.
Maldonado has a contract and will be driving for Lotus again in 2015, he will be hoping to prove why he should be an F1 driver after what has been a dismal season for the Venezuelan.
2014 Performance Comparison:
| Romain Grosjean |
Pastor Maldonado |
|
| Qualified ahead | 11 | 4 |
| Average qualifying gap | -0.669s | +0.669s |
| Finished race ahead | 5 | 5 |
| Laps spent ahead | 405 | 309 |
For 2015, all teams (except Ferrari) have to change their nose design to comply with new rules. Lotus’ design varies the most from the 2015 style and will have the most dramatic change. Whether this is the change they need is doubtful and will probably need to adapt the rest of the aero as a result. Engine-wise, Renault are being pushed by Red Bull to improve the power unit and any positive changes should help the Enstone based team as well.
James Allison’s departure to Ferrari in 2013 was a step back for Lotus and the funding they’ll receive for 8th place doesn’t give good indications considering what they were able to produce with the prize for 4th last year. Despite this you just get the feeling that Lotus are not as small as they seem, they could be back next year in the top 6 teams. The financial status of Lotus is unknown however team principle, Gerard Lopez, was one of 3 team principles to threaten to boycott a couple of races in protest of the prize equity they received from the FIA.
