Troubled Lotus in 'strange situation' ahead of Australian GP, admits Romain Grosjean

Romain Grosjean says Lotus's "disaster winter" means the team are heading into the unknown at the Australian GP with the Frenchman admitting he has "no idea" how long the E22 will last in the race.

"I jump out of the car and, yes, sometimes it has been a disaster. You go out with new tyres and everything breaks on the out lap and you have to come in and four times a day..." he recounted. "But I don't think it's any interest to blame anyone or just be angry and run away. The idea is to work together and try to get the best of what we can. "Yes, it's been a disaster winter for us. Renault has got their issues, we have got ours but on the other hand we have learnt a few things from the little running we did and all those things if we can get right for here that's already a step forward. "Renault I'm sure has upgraded the software and things will get better as well. On paper the car is good so, yes, there are a lot of things we want to learn but I won't jump out of the car tomorrow and say 'that is it, that is bad, that is beep, beep, beep' or whatsoever. Sometimes you can be a bit emotional when it doesn't go as you want but so far it's winter testing and not even the first race." New team-mate Pastor Maldonado, meanwhile, said that while it was clear that the Mercedes-powered runners were likely to lead the way in Australia, he was hopeful that Lotus would take their first steps towards closing the gap. "We hope it will be good with no problems especially. We know that the car's potential is quite good," the Venezuelan said. "To be honest Mercedes is better than all the other engines at the moment. I think from the aerodynamic point of view there is not much influence, especially now at the beginning of the year, in the final result. "Maybe we have a really good car but at the moment we have been not able to put it all together. So we will see. It's going to be tough, a hard weekend for all of the teams - even Mercedes. But for sure they start with some gap but hopefully we can start to work better and better and catch them."