26/11/2015
NEWS STORY
Lotus equipment is last to arrive in Abu Dhabi as Enstone outfit cuts it fine.
Despite the constant assurances that the deal which will see Renault buy a large slice of Lotus is merely awaiting the dotting of a few Is and the crossing of a few Ts, speculation as to the future of the Enstone outfit continues.
Whilst the rest of the teams had their equipment in place a couple of days ago, Lotus' freight didn't arrive at the track until this morning, leading to concerns that the team might be a no-show.
As the equipment finally arrived at the track and the crew got to building the cars which will hit the track tomorrow, the team was saying nothing, other than that "issues" had caused the hold up.
Missing official scrutineering the team was subsequently given permission to have the cars scrutineered before FP1 on Friday.
In Belgium the cars were impounded by bailiffs whilst in Japan the team was locked-out of its hospitality unit, even in Brazil the team, which has admitted to receiving 'hand-outs' from Bernie Ecclestone, was initially given only limited access to its garage.
"It's something we have experienced in the past," admitted Romain Grosjean at today's press conference. "We have always managed to put it on track on time.
"As long as it's ready for FP2 then I'm happy," he laughed. "As we've shown in, I think it was Suzuka and Brazil when we were a little bit late, we did manage to put the car on track and go for it. It's just harder work for the guys who don't deserve this - but they are going to do the maximum and then from there we try to score some good points."
Check out our Thursday gallery, here.