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Lotus have been one team who are clearly struggling in at the moment. The drivers are calling this a tough phase, and not exactly a transitional phase. Maldonado who made his way into the Lotus team from Williams for this season has called the Free Practice session, and the qualifying session held on Saturday, as a step forward for the team, and believes that this is a good starting point for the season. He further added that the car has plenty of potential that has to be explored by the them.
The first obvious question that we put forward was whether he and the team were pushing the car to the limit. Both Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean like all other Renault teams were slow on the speed trap, although it has to be noted that Vettel was the slowest with the speed of 288.5 KPH, but it was also that the Lotus were the slowest on the maximum speed trap at each of the intermediates.
“We were pushing the car, for sure, but the car is still not 100% and the car is completely new for us, and we’re discovering the car, and we have to adjust lots of things in the car, and trying to make everything work together, and this is the first time we ran for 50 laps in the year. So it’s okay, and we need to discover the potential. But We are pushing the car.”
The second question that was put forwarded by other media crew was whether the Lotus preferred dry conditions for the race. It was obvious that the team needs mileage, and Maldonado agreed that they would prefer a standard situation for the sake of the car.
“Yeah, for the car, to have progress, and even for the race, and looking at our situation, we would prefer standard situation to gather data. But we know that here it can rain, and we’re ready, as it can help us to get points.”
He was further quizzed on his off track explorations, and whether his balance and grip were to his preference, or was it that the car was hard to drive.
“Here, the car seems to be loose. The grip was not there, and we’re working on it. “
“It was so hard, but we were trying to adapt to the conditions and the car, but it’s clear to see that the car is hard to drive, and at the moment it’s loose, especially at the rear, but it’s not only the rear, we need to work around the brakes, we need to work around the aero, we need to work around the setup, and it’s not easy, but it’s a good starting point.”
After his no show in Free Practice sessions at Melbourne, it was asked whether today felt like a proper start to their journey ahead.
“It’s like a Day 1 of the season, and that’s true as we haven’t been able to run on Friday in Australia, and even on Saturday, and to be honest, I’m happy here as we haven’t had many problems here which is good step forward, and especially to the mechanics as they have been working hard. So it’s quite good. We’re working hard, and we hope to soon close to the Top 10.”
Since he felt that it was the Day 1 of the season, the question that popped up was the driving styles as compared to the past era.
“Driving style is similar to what we had in the past, you know even if they seem different. You need to brake, you need to accelerate, you need to do the lines. For sure, you need to adapt 100% to the car, and it’s easy to adapt to yourself, and we need to start to approach to different things to explore the car the potential of the car which is not the case at the moment.”
