Winning structure still in place at Lotus - Villadelprat

Joan Villadelprat is full of praise for Lotus, a team he says still has the blood of Benetton and Renault flowing in its veins.

Spaniard Villadelprat, who was team manager at the Enstone based team when Michael Schumacher won his first titles in 1994 and 1995, was speaking the day after Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean finished second and third in Hungary in the black and gold-liveried Lotuses.

"What counts is that the team has always maintained its competitive structure and the only changes in personnel were the ones that were needed," he wrote in his El Pais column.

"This has given them a stability that most don’t have. It’s a solid and flawless team.

"They have demonstrated in the past that they can make a winning car: we did it with Schumacher and they did it again must more recently with Fernando Alonso.

"Although the owners have changed, the structure has survived.

"Eric Boullier, the team boss, and James Allison, the technical head, are doing an outstanding job, having restored a winning feeling again."

The team’s last win was Alonso’s at Fuji in 2008.