Romain Grosjean has hailed the new Lotus E20 as an improvement over last year's car in terms of handling after only two days in the cockpit. The Frenchman, who drove the Renault R31 fielded by the former Renault team in Friday practice twice last year, believes his 2012 machine is more driveable.
"The car is handling better than it was last year," said Grosjean. "It's working quite well and the car is very good to drive. I wouldn't say that it's easy because Formula 1 is never easy, but it's enjoyable to drive and you can play with it, which is the main thing."
Despite many of the team's rivals highlighting the pace of the Lotus, which was the fastest of the 2012-specification cars during the four-day test, Grosjean remains cautious about its speed. However, he is happy with the progress that the team has made over the past 24 hours with the performance of the car over the long runs.
"I would prefer to be in this position than the other way around, that's for sure," he said of the Lotus's good start. "Hopefully they are right, but we are cautious about the pace.
"Today went quite well. We mainly did long runs in the afternoon and from the first long run we did yesterday afternoon to today has been much better. It's a good starting point. We now have a lot of data to work on for the next test at Barcelona. It's good that we have a week off to analyze it."
The four-day Barcelona test kicks off on Feb. 21.