Lotus have released the first images of their 2015 challenger, the E23 Hybrid.
Lotus have switched from Renault to Mercedes power after a disappointing 2014 campaign, during which the accumulated a mere eight points and eighth place in the standings.
“The E23 Hybrid represents a massive step forward for us,” said Technical Director Nick Chester. “It’s no secret that we struggled with last year’s car so we’ve targeted every area that caused us an issue.
“We’ve made strong progress in the wind tunnel as well as in areas such as packaging and cooling. We expect the E23 to perform far, far better than its predecessor. In terms of what’s new, obviously a massive change for us is a new Power Unit supplier. We made this change as it looked and looks to be the one area of the car which could bring us the greatest performance gain.
“It’s not just performance, but reliability and driveability as well as packaging and cooling too.
“We learnt a lot in many areas of the car over the course of 2014 so there are many lessons which have been applied. We know we’ve made a big step. We won’t know how our car will fare in relative terms until we’re out in action at a Grand Prix, but we certainly expect to be much more competitive than last year.”
The Enstone-based team will field the same driver up as 2014, with Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado both hoping for returns to the podium. They are joined by GP2 champion Jolyon Palmer as the reserve driver.
