Lotus technical chief Mike Gascoyne is confident that his team will be in a stronger position in Malaysia, both because it is identified and fixed its Melbourne issues, and because he believes the Sepang track will play to the T128's strengths.
After a winter in which Lotus hoped it had made enough progress to challenge the likes of Toro Rosso and Force India in the midfield pack, the team was disappointed to find itself back in its 2010 position behind the established teams (but ahead of Marussia Virgin) in Australia.
Gascoyne felt that Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen had shown better form in the grand prix, and said that Lotus had rectified the glitches that interrupted its running in Melbourne.
"We left Australia with mixed feelings about the race," he admitted. "Heikki's pace in the early laps was a good step forward for us, and Jarno's race pace took us close to what we showed in the preseason tests we can do, but we did struggle all weekend with the tires and a couple of small issues that we have now had time to resolve back at the factory."
Issues with tire temperature were cited as Lotus' main problem in Australia. Gascoyne expects Malaysia's warmer weather to help, and also hopes that the track layout will be better for the T128.
"The conditions at Sepang should suit us more favorably," he said. "I think the track temperatures will help us show more of the car's true pace and as the layout it is quite similar to Barcelona -- relatively high aero and a good mix of low- and high-speed turns -- I think we will be able to extract more performance from the car than we were able to in Melbourne."