The Lotus F1 Team revealed that they will skip the first test in Jerez that is due to take place on 28 January.

Lotus F1 Technical Director, Nick Chester, said that they plan to launch the E22 at the Bahrain test in more representative conditions.

“We’re going to keep our car under wraps a little longer than some other teams. We’ve decided that attending the Jerez test isn’t ideal for our build and development programme. We are likely to unveil the car before attending the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we should really be able to put the car through its paces in representative conditions.”

Although Lotus will miss the first test, Chester made it clear that the car is all but complete with just the nose crash test to complete.

“We’ve made very good progress with the various homologation tests which took place before Christmas including chassis squeeze and side impact loading tests as well as the rear crash structure, meaning we just have the nose test to complete the car’s homologation.”

“We’ve undertaken chassis fits for Romain and Pastor. Certainly, our partners who have seen the car have reported themselves to be very impressed with the layout and various solutions to the new technical challenges.”

Missing out on the first test will put Lotus on the backfoot but Chester was optimistic that they will be able to get what they want out of the car at the second test in Bahrain/

“From our perspective the figures look promising and development has been positive. That said, we are very much working with very little idea of what the other teams are doing. This is the first year of radically different regulations which means that all teams are developing their cars along potentially quite different avenues.”

“It’s fascinating for us engineers and I hope it is fascinating for the fans too. We think we have a very good solution to the challenge and hopefully this will be seen when the E22 turns its wheels in anger.”