• Mugello test - Day 3

Grosjean happy with Lotus updates

Romain Grosjean set the fastest time at Mugello © Sutton Images

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Romain Grosjean is confident Lotus has found some improvements on the Lotus E20 over the last three days of testing in Mugello.

Grosjean set the fastest time of the test with a 1:21.035 after working on various suspension configurations and a new floor for next week's Spanish Grand Prix. He said Lotus also worked on a couple of concepts it wasn't able to test earlier in the year and left Mugello in better shape as a result.

"We had plenty of things that we really wanted to test since the first race but we didn't have chance to do it, but here we could do them," he told Sky Sports News. "Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to change what we want [on the car], but I think there is a few interesting things that we can put [on the car] for Barcelona and for the rest of the season to try to improve our performance."

But Grosjean said there was still room for improvement and that the team did not get a chance to work on low-speed performance at Mugello.

"There are still areas that we can improve," he added. "We are working very hard at the factory and on track everybody is really pushing hard to get the best out of the E20. Here we are missing maybe the big braking zones for the slow corners to be more relevant to the championship."

Lotus' head of trackside operations Alan Permane went into more detail on the team's programme at Mugello.

"After looking at the data from yesterday, we ran further back-to-back tests on our suspension configurations," he said. "Track conditions were better today as a result of yesterday's running. We stopped early for lunch so that we could change the suspension and be out running straight away in the afternoon session. In the afternoon we also assessed some new floor updates applicable for Barcelona, as well as a rear suspension update fitted late in the day.

"Mugello is quite hard on the tyres; not in terms of degradation, but through the high speed loadings generating heat. This has taught us some interesting lessons applicable to the rest of the season. Mugello is also an excellent circuit for doing aerodynamic evaluation, so it has been time well spent here."

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