Team Lotus Deny Showboating Claims

Judging by the performance showcased by their 2011-spec T128 racer through winter testing, Team Lotus was expected to finally battle against the already established teams of F1 in 2011. However, the season opening Australian Grand Prix showed the same old lack of pace disclosed by the Lotus-prepared cars, leading many to believe that the squad showboated in testing.

Two weeks prior to the race in Melbourne, Team Lotus had done a race simulation in Barcelona and their lap times were nothing short of impressive when compared to how their challenger behaved a year before. Asked to comment on claims of showboating however, the team's technical boss Mike Gascoyne dismissed the allegations from the get go.

“Utter nonsense,” sounded his string objection to those claims, according to Germany's Auto Motor und Sport. “The last day in Barcelona was a race simulation, so why would we lie to ourselves?”

Gascoyne once again underlined that the team's issues in Australia were related to failure to getting the Pirelli tires up to temperature, which affected the car's balance in the race. The Italian tire maker itself admitted after the race that it was surprised with the level of tire wear presented by its compounds in Australia, as it differed completely from the rubber provided to the F1 teams in testing.

“With the hard and the soft tires we were well below the average temperatures of all the other cars in the field,” further explained Gascoyne, who insisted that these types of problems should not be encountered in Malaysia this weekend, as higher track temperatures at Sepang International Circuit should lead to tire wear levels similar to the ones in testing.

“We will see how good our car really is. Maybe there (in Malaysia) our weakness will be a strength,” added Gascoyne.