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Cautious Lotus cancel running

Romain Grosjean only completed seven laps on Tuesday morning © Sutton Images

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• News:
• Lotus leaves Barcelona test early due to chassis issues
  

• Drivers:
• Romain Grosjean

• Teams:
• Lotus F1

Lotus will not run for the rest of the first day of the second test in Barcelona after issues with its new chassis.

Romain Grosjean was at the wheel of the E20 on Tuesday morning but had only completed seven laps when he returned to the pits. Trackside operations director Alan Permane explained that a new chassis did not respond as expected and as a result it would be sent back to the factory to be assessed.

"This morning was our first shakedown of our second chassis," Permane said. "Once the car was on track it was soon evident that everything wasn't quite as it should be. As a precaution we are returning the chassis to Enstone for further investigation. Chassis E20-01, which we used in Jerez, is being sent over and we expect to be on track with that chassis tomorrow."

Grosjean admitted it was a setback but said he was looking forward to making up for lost time in the chassis that set the fastest lap of the 2012 cars in Jerez.

"We completed a few aero runs and then started timed runs, but I was very quickly aware that the car wasn't responding as it should," Grosjean said. "It's not ideal to lose track time, but fortunately we will have the chassis which ran perfectly in Jerez so I should get some good track time tomorrow. It's far better that we have an issue like this now rather than in Melbourne."

Team principal Eric Boullier played down the problem, saying that the smooth first test meant it would not affect the team too much.

"This is a minor setback to our overall test programme," he said. "Fortunately we accumulated good mileage in Jerez. If this is the only issue we have during testing then we will still be well prepared for the start of the season. We'll be back on track tomorrow with chassis E20-01 and assessing chassis E20-02 back at Enstone."

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