Fire ends the day’s running for Lotus in Bahrain

Pastor Maldonado ended the second day of this week’s Bahrain test with 31 laps completed after a localized fire in the rear of the E22 ended the day’s running for Lotus F1 Team. Pastor set a lap time of 1min 41.613secs as the team continued to conduct evaluations of new parts.

Pastor Maldonado, Lotus F1 Team stops on track

Photo by: XPB Images

We need to keep working and for sure it’s not an ideal situation for the team, or for me but we need to keep focus, work together and I hope for the future we can be better.

Today was my last day of pre-season testing so it will be very interesting when we get to Australia.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Today we had a localised fire in the car which ended our running early and caused a reasonable amount of damage to the E22. We’re inspecting the chassis and installation very carefully to deduce the cause of the fire and rectify any issues we find. Clearly this is not how we wanted to spend our day, but our focus is getting the most from the remaining days of the test.”

Fast Facts:

Track: Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain, 5.4km
Chassis: E22-02 (as was used on 27/2 contrary to yesterday’s release)
Weather: Sunny and cloudy ambient 23-27°C, track 27-38°C
Programme: Evaluation of new parts.
Laps Completed: 31
Classification: P10, 1:41.613
Interruptions: Software updates. Fire and resultant damage.

Lotus F1 Team