As it heads into the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, Lotus seeks to build on the team's impressive momentum gained in Canada where both Mercedes-powered cars finished in the points.
Lotus technical director Nick Chester believes Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado can steer the team's E23 once again into the upper part of the grid and target another valuable points finish.
"There’s nothing to say we can’t perform as we did in Montréal," Chester said. "It’s another medium downforce track with demands for strong traction, efficient aerodynamics and power unit performance. There are a few more medium speed corners than in Canada which changes the requirements a bit and there’s every reason to expect the E23 will go pretty well."
Based on the Enstone outfit's current pace and improvement, Chester believes the upcoming venues may well provide some favorable chances for Lotus which now has Red Bull clearly in its sight with regard to performance.
"There doesn’t seem to be anything to strike fear into the team, in fact the next races present us with a good opportunity to move up the order. Austria should be strong, Silverstone should be good as it’s also a power circuit if a little more of a challenge with some of the high speed corners and we went quite well in Barcelona with quite a similar set-up. Budapest should be quite fine as we’ve shown that we can deal with low speed corners well and traction has been promising. Spa and Monza should also be strong with their power demands. We’re showing well on all types of track so we have good confidence for the season ahead."
Lotus currently stands fifth in the Constructor's Championship, behind Red Bull.
"Certainly we want to maintain this position and target any improvement we can get. There’s a reasonable gap ahead to fourth, but certainly there’s a feeling that we have come on a long way in terms of reliability and understanding of our car after what was a big change for us in terms of Power Unit supplier for this season. We know that Red Bull in fourth position have tremendous resources at their disposal, but we’ll be doing everything we can to catch them."
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