Lotus aims for established teams by the Spanish round

Being quite the optimistic technical director that he is, Mike Gascoyne believes that his Lotus squad will be fighting with the established Formula One teams by the time the Spanish GP in Barcelona comes around in May. He is also expecting to be ahead of the other debuting teams when the checkered flag drops at the opening round in Bahrain.

Gascoyne shared his teams goals and preparations for the forthcoming season on the teams official website, “We have said we are aiming to be ahead of the new teams when we all reach Bahrain, but we would also like to be pretty close to the midfield teams after the first few races of the season. The update we have planned for Spain will see a boost in performance when we reach Barcelona which will give us the chance to start fighting with the slowest of the established teams which, given progress so far, has to be the next goal for us.”

While for now the Malaysian outfit is one week ahead of schedule, "We had been looking at firing up our engine for the first time on 12th February, but with the efforts everyone’s been putting in we have now been able to bring that forward to 5th February."

And while they won't be present for the first two test sessions in February, they will make their official track debut at the third session. Gascoyne explained further, "We are also in a position to confirm that we will be on track for the first time at the third official test at Jerez from 17th February, and then at Barcelona from 25th February. We are also aiming to run chassis two for the last two days of that Barcelona test.”