Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Maldonado expects Sepang to suit E23

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Pastor Maldonado expects the Sepang International Circuit to suit the Lotus E23 during this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

Following a tough 2014, Lotus has built a much more competitive car for this season, aided by a switch to the Mercedes power unit. Lotus cars have traditionally been very kind on the Pirelli tyres, helping the team in hot conditions, and as a result Maldonado is hopeful of a strong showing in the second race of the year.

"It’s still very early in the season so there will still be surprises as teams learn their cars and unlock their potential," Maldonado said. "Certainly, everything we’ve seen so far with the E23 suggests that it should be a good all-rounder. Sepang can get very hot, and our car seems to like hot conditions so that could be a point in our favour."

Both Lotus cars retired on the opening lap of the Australian Grand Prix, and Maldonado believes a top five finish would have been possible given what the car has shown in pre-season testing.

"Everything looked very positive for a strong top ten finish, maybe even top five. Our car was strong and we adapted to the track well. The weather was in our favour and we had great potential."

Click here to learn about a key Mercedes power unit change in 2015

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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.