Pastor Maldonado believes Lotus is in the battle with Williams, Red Bull and Ferrari to be best of the rest behind Mercedes.
Lotus endured a tough 2014 season, but has switched from Renault to the Mercedes power unit and enjoyed a much more promising pre-season. Maldonado says the three tests at Jerez and Barcelona have shown Mercedes to be comfortably clear of the rest of the field but he believes Lotus will be fighting three teams to be best of the rest this season.
“Certainly we’ll be in the fight!” Maldonado said. “We’re working hard to improve and we’ve seen that the reigning champions have set a very high standard with their 2015 car.
“The difference between them and the rest of the field looks quite big after pre-season testing, but behind them the group is getting more compact. There should be a good mix of Williams, Red Bull, Ferrari and us which should make things interesting.”
Maldonado also believes the amount of mileage Lotus has been able to complete in pre-season will allow it to take a clear development direction with the E23.
“I’m happy with what we’ve learnt this winter, and it’s a completely different situation from last year. We’re much stronger and better prepared for 2015. We’ve done more than 4500km in testing so it’s interesting what we’ve learnt and we’ll be able to put everything into practice in Australia and with the development of the car.”
Click here for the latest technical upgrades before Melbourne in pictures
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
