Bahrain II, Day 1: Lotus F1 test report

Pastor Maldonado ended the first day of this week’s Bahrain test with 31 laps completed after an exhaust issue shortened the day’s running for Lotus F1 Team. Pastor set a lap time of 1min 40.599secs as the team conducted evaluations of new parts, including an updated exhaust. The team will revert to the earlier specification of exhaust for tomorrow’s running.

Pastor Maldonado will drive tomorrow for his final day of pre-season testing at Bahrain International Circuit.

Pastor Maldonado:

“For sure it wasn’t what we wanted today, but we are all working very hard to make progress and I’m sure we’ll have solutions quite soon as a team, and it’s clear we have good potential and the car is not bad. We have had some problems but we are fixing them and we are making improvements with electronics and software every day we run.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director:

“Today started well and we evaluated new aero parts in the morning. Unfortunately, our new specification exhaust system failed, causing a small amount of damage to the surrounding area of the car. This stopped us running early due to the rectification work required. For tomorrow, we will run with our previous specification of exhaust and we do not expect to see any similar problems to those we saw today.”