New car will have just eight days of running ahead of the
season.
Lotus will skip the first pre-season test in Jerez,
leaving just eight days of running for the E22 before the season opening
Australian Grand Prix.
The Enstone-based team hope that spending longer in the
factory developing the car will be of more benefit to them than four days of
running in southern Spain.
"We're going to keep our car under wraps a little
longer than some other teams," Technical Director Nick Chester said.
"We've decided that attending the Jerez test isn't
ideal for our build and development programme. We are likely to unveil the car
before attending the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we should really be able to
put the car through its paces in representative conditions."
Whilst the news would seem to suggest that Lotus are
behind with their development of the 2014 challenger, Chester says he is happy
with their progress.
"We've made very good progress with the various
homologation tests which took place before Christmas including chassis squeeze
and side impact loading tests as well as the rear crash structure, meaning we
just have the nose test to complete the car's homologation," he added.
"We've undertaken chassis fits for Romain and
Pastor. Certainly, our partners who have seen the car have reported themselves
to be very impressed with the layout and various solutions to the new technical
challenges.
"Our E22 development programme has been ongoing for
over two years and it has been illuminating watching it grow. The backbone of
Enstone is strong and we are relishing the challenge of the new season
ahead."
Having finished 2013 as arguably the second fastest team,
the playing field should be reset with this year's major rules overhaul, but
the Technical Director revealed initial figures suggest Lotus will be
competitive again.
"From our perspective the figures look promising and
development has been positive. That said, we are very much working with very
little idea of what the other teams are doing. This is the first year of
radically different regulations which means that all teams are developing their
cars along potentially quite different avenues.
"It's fascinating for us engineers and I hope it is
fascinating for the fans too. We think we have a very good solution to the
challenge and hopefully this will be seen when the E22 turns its wheels in
anger."
2014 pre-season test schedule
28-31 January - Jerez, Spain
19-22 February - Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain
February-2 March - Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain
Culled from Skysports
