Green Lotus makes Silverstone track debut

New formula one team Lotus gave its predominantly green 2010 car its debut track outing on Tuesday.

During its brief shakedown test on Silverstone’s short Stowe circuit in the hands of Malaysian test driver Fairuz Fauzy, the car was secretly photographed.

As expected, it features a livery that harks back to the famous marque’s iconic dark green and gold past.

Also notable are the sponsor logos of Proton, Malaysian tourism, the Tune Group and Naza Corporation, but not team boss Tony Fernandes’ airline AirAsia.

Team chief executive Riad Asmat indicated to the Star newspaper that more sponsors could be unveiled at Friday’s official launch.

“You can see from the livery of the car who will be supporting us.  It will be a mix of Malaysian and international sponsors,” he told the Malaysian publication.

Technical boss Mike Gascoyne told BBC Sport that the car’s debut revealed “no major issues”.

“The Stowe circuit is not much bigger than a go-kart track and on a cold February afternoon when it’s snowing intermittently you are never going to learn much about the handling of the car,” he said.

“But we got a good number of laps on it and we did all the systems checks so we can run in anger (next week) in Jerez.”

Asmat again denied rumours that, like USF1 and Campos, Lotus is also struggling to be ready for the Bahrain season opener next month.

“We will be there on the grid in Bahrain,” he said.  “There is no question about it.”

© RIF|GMM