Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Lotus closing in on Grosjean's replacement

Lotus has "a pretty good idea" of who will replace Romain Grosjean in 2016, according to deputy team principal Federico Gastaldi.

Grosjean announced in September he will be leaving Lotus to join the new Haas F1 Team in 2016, with Gastaldi telling F1i the decision had caught the team by surprise. Now four weeks after Lotus learned of Grosjean's departure, Gastaldi says it is closing in on his replacement.

"The remorseless passing of time means that you always get closer to something in the future, so yes, we are closer to making an announcement," Gastaldi said. "I would say something will come sooner rather than later.

"We won’t be disclosing who it is before we announce it, but we certainly have been speaking to drivers with good provenance and we have a pretty good idea who we will have in the car."

Gastaldi has previously named third driver Jolyon Palmer as a strong candidate for the seat, while F1i understands Kevin Magnussen has also been in discussions over the vacancy.

Palmer will drive for Lotus in all of the remaining FP1 sessions this season following Grosjean's decision to leave.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.