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Lotus F1® Team driver Romain Grosjean, drives the team into its first points finish of the 2014 F1® season, whilst teammate Pastor Maldonado climbs 7 places up the grid, to finish in P15. Celebrating his 50th Grand Prix race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Cataluñya, for the Spanish Grand Prix, Lotus F1® Team driver, Romain Grosjean claimed vital first season points which had previously eluded the Lotus F1® Team. A superb, yet taut qualifying saw the Frenchman begin from P5, the highest grand prix start of the season, whereas stablemate Pastor Maldonado kept his head up, disappointed at having to start from the back of the pack in P22, thanks to a run-off in Q1. During the 66-laps of the race however, both drivers delivered for the team. Romain held onto his P5 slot for as long as possible keeping his adversaries in his rear view. Power unit issues mid-race however meant he slipped from P5 but still maintained a top ten position to finally take the flag in P8. Pastor on the other hand was consistently climbing but unfortunately got slapped early on with a 5-second stop/go penalty. Never-the-less he recovered quickly to advance some 7 places, coming home in P15. Romain Grosjean P8 E22-03: “It’s been a tough battle for us to get points this season and that was certainly one of the hardest races I’ve contested in a long time. I did everything I could to drive around the power unit issues, which really made things difficult when battling the other cars. It’s good for all the crew at the track and at Enstone to finally get a reward for all their hard work. There are still a lot of areas where we can improve and certainly the car wasn’t as quick today as it was yesterday, with the different track conditions as well as the other issue. It’s Mothers’ Day in Switzerland so this one’s for my mum!" Pastor Maldonado P15 E22-01: “We made a step forward in terms of pace with the car this weekend, it was much more competitive than 15th but the lack of top speed meant we weren’t able to attack even if we had a quicker car than others around us. We need to keep working on that and to be faster on the straights. Today’s result is a bit disappointing but my race had been already compromised by starting at the back the grid. At least we saw the chequered flag and collected more data for the team to keep on developing the car." Frederico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: "We are very pleased for the team and for Romain to have scored our first points today. It’s certainly been a long road to get to this place. It’s not all a sweet taste as we were expecting to have finished further up the grid. We had some issues with the power unit again so we need to keep working with Renault Sport F1 to ensure we can keep fighting for as many points as possible. We have two days of testing coming up and our target is to carry on making improvements in performance and reliability.” Now as we continue into the European leg of the season, the team prepare for the following round of the competition that takes place in Monaco on the 25th May 2014.

The third round of the F1® 2014 World Championship competition sees Lotus F1® Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado taking the flag in P12 and P14 As the sun set on the desert kingdom of Bahrain, The Lotus F1® Team went to battle, and a challenge it was. With Romain starting 16th on the grid and Pastor 17th, it was never going to be an easy task. Yet, once again the team unified, and attacked the job with gusto. Staving off competition, they managed to gain several places and halfway through the 57-lap race, Romain was running in P15 and Pastor in P12. A later collision for Pastor Maldonado saw him pick up a 10 second stop and go penalty and a 5 place grid penalty which will be applied during the next round of the 2014 F1 Championship, in China. A disappointing end for the team, as both cars took the chequered flag this time around. Romain finished in P12 and Pastor P14.Romain Grosjean P12 E22-03: “It's good that we didn't have any problems during the weekend and we were able to finish the race with both cars. It's not easy racing - what with the fuel management and energy recovery system – so there’s certainly more mental work going on in the cockpit. At certain points of the race we were quite quick, but then at other points we were really struggling with the rear grip. Fortunately, we now have two days of testing at Bahrain so we’ll be able to try a lot of different set-ups to try to get the car more as we want it."Pastor Maldonado P14 E22-01: “As we expected the pace was much better in the race than it was in qualifying. We were using quite an interesting strategy and were running on two stops which was working well until the incident. We will need to have a look again at what happened as Esteban seemed to be off his line coming into turn one - maybe he missed his braking point, I don't know – and by then I was in the corner with nowhere to go. For sure it's difficult to understand and I was coming out from the pits and with cold tyres. I think he was very unlucky and it’s good he jumped straight out of the car. As a team it’s a plus that we finished with two cars which is very important and now we need to learn from this race and push hard for Shanghai."Frederico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: "Both drivers kept their heads down and kept pushing today. It’s clear we still have to unlock a lot of pace from this car, but we were much better with reliability here and our relative pace has improved too. It was good to see both cars at the finish of the race as this is what we need to improve the car and make it faster.” The team now head to China for the fourth round of the competition which takes place at the Shanghai circuit on the 20th April 2014.

Romain Grosjean delivers a steady and progressive race in Sepang, whilst power issues for Pastor Maldonado forces a tough decision to retire Round two of the 2014 F1® season got underway today, and it was a bag of mixed fortunes for the Lotus F1® Team. Starting in P15 and P16, Lotus F1® Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado made good progress off the grid until a loss of power for Pastor during the first lap, cut short the Venezuelan’s race who took the tough decision to safeguard his engine and retire. Romain however kept the black and gold flag flying high and advanced quickly, accelerating two places and sliding into P13 during the fourth lap. He then maintained his pace, overtaking Caterham’s Kobayashi to claim P12 during lap 32. Continuing his steady fight forwards and providing valuable data for the team, he further ascended into P11 and was forced to furiously defend his place in the last laps of the race thanks to a spirited challenge from teammate of old, Kimi Räikkönen. The Räikkönen charge did not break Romain’s lock down and he successfully crossed the line, his P11 finish in hand. Romain Grosjean P11 E22-03: “Eleventh place is good for all the guys at Enstone and at the track, and it's good for me too. Finishing the race was our first objective and then we wanted to see where we were with our car. It's not perfect yet but it's good to be where we are at this stage. I had a big loss of downforce around eight laps to the end especially in the rear of the car which made things difficult, especially when I had to defend. Without that issue, I’m sure we could have finished higher. It's good to be back and close to the points so it's a positive for all of us. It was a good battle at the end. I kept remembering our past battles to make sure Kimi couldn't go through!" Pastor Maldonado DNF E22-01: “After the start we were losing a lot of power so we'll have to investigate later to see what the issue is and analyse the data. This problem meant I had to retire in order to protect the engine. Despite that, this weekend has been clearly a step forwards. Since Saturday, we've been able to run far more with the car and Romain was able to finish the race. Today obviously was not so good for me, but we're not the only ones with issues so early in the season. This is all related to all the complex packages in the car, but we have learnt a lot this weekend and will make progress for the next.” Frederico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: “Today Romain drove a great race to be in with a shout of points and finish the team’s first race of 2014. That he was able to defend his position for the last eight laps despite his rear diffuser not working properly shows his determination. This determination is shared by the entire team as we now look to extract more performance from the E22. Pastor was very unfortunate with an issue which could have damaged his engine. We needed to retire him so that we can ensure better performance later in the year. We head to Bahrain as determined as ever to find more improvements in performance and reliability.” The next round of the competition takes place at the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain on the 6th April.