Monday 6 January 2014

Major blow for Lotus as they will miss the first pre-season test in Jerez

The Lotus F1 Team announced this afternoon that they will miss the first test of 2014 as they believe that the timing of the test is not ideal for the development programme which would suggest that the Enstone squad are not where they would like to be in relation to their new car the E22.

Discussing the new car the team's technical director Nick Chester confirmed that the new chassis has passed all the mandatory FIA crash tests and they are yet to conduct the front nose test.

The team will will instead run the car for the first time at the Bahrain International Circuit which starts on February 19. Despite the news that they will miss the first test, Chester confirmed that the teams partners who have seen the car are happy with the way the car is progressing so it will be interesting to see how the team get on in Bahrain.

In other Lotus related news, the team have appointed a new CEO. Matthew Cater takes over from Patrick Louis. Despite the fact that Frenchman is stepping down from the day to day role at Lotus he will remain on the team's board and is moving to Genii Automotive which is a division of the Lotus F1 Team's parent company Genii Capital.

The news that Lotus will miss the first test of the season is extremely unfortunate due to the fact that teams need to get as much track time as possible before the start of the new season in Australia due to the new regulations coming into Formula One this season. The team are extremely professional however and I have no doubt that the team will recover from this set back.

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