Formula One Mid-Season Review: Lotus

Lotus have endured a fluctuating 2015 Formula One season with a tale of two drivers. On one side of the garage, Romain Grosjean has consistently gotten himself into Q3, whereas team mate Pastor Maldonado has only managed to do so once. Where Grosjean driven the car home in the points five times, his Maldonado has delivered only twice.

But with six retirements and four penalties from the stewards (with three in last weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix), Pastor has had a stand out season for all the wrong reasons, again

Despite already scoring more than triple the team's point's tally compared to last season, the team have a lot more work to do if they are to finish fifth in the constructors championship.

The Story So Far

For Lotus, 2015 so far will have been a season of missed opportunities. With only one double points finish out of a possible ten and the second most retirements of all the constructors (one behind McLaren-Honda), the team have a lot of issues to fix going into the summer break. A combination of driver error and technical gremlins have cost the team certain points paying positions.

One such opportunity arose in Australia where only 15 cars lined up on the starting grid, the fewest in ten seasons. But a first turn incident for Pastor and engine failure for Romain  prohibited the team from starting the season well.

But as the season ran on, a noticeable difference in driver class emerged. Romain was able to consistently qualify his car in the top ten for the opening four Grands Prix and perform equally impressive drives and score points in China, Bahrain, Spain, Canada and Hungary. However, in Pastor's first six races trouble followed him everywhere.

This included a puncture and a penalty in Malaysia, missing his pit entry in China and not getting out of Q1 in Bahrain. Although some collisions, such as the one where he and Jenson Button of McLaren tangled were not his fault, the vast majority continue the trend that Maldonado has had one of his most chaotic seasons so far.

Canada was definitely the team's highest point in the past two seasons. With both cars qualifying in the top six and going on to drive superbly in the points for both drivers in a fantastic achievement that deserves its praises, considering how far behind they were in 2014.

This joy was met with disappointment weeks later and both cars were wiped out on the first lap in Silverstone, breaking the first rule of racing, which is don't crash into your team-mate. In Hungary, Maldonado picked up three penalties in one race, the most by one driver in the sport's history. He is six penalties away from his own season record that he set last season. Can it be done? Does his team really want to find out?

Reasons to be Excited

They're quicker than last season and faster than Force India, Toro Rosso and McLaren-Honda, so fifth place is attainable. Plus in September we will find out if Renault are going to purchase their old outfitters back and could mean more of an investment to the Enstone based squad, who won the World Championship as Renault in 2005 and 2006.

Driver Ratings

Romain Grosjean – Grosjean is a driver continuously improving and hugely underrated this year. Besides the top three teams, he has driven the most consistently all season both in qualifying and on race day. It's hard to see him being picked for a top drive just yet but at the moment he is too good to lose his drive should that be the case next season. 8/10

Pastor Maldonado – Maldonado is the team's weak link. For every flash of brilliance there has been a dozen or so errors. There's even a website dedicated to his mistakes, aptly named hasmaldonadocrashedtoday.com. The one thing he has above Grosjean is a race win (and tons of sponsorship money.) However, Heikki Kovalainen, Olivier Panis and Jarno Trulli are some of the forgotten names that have previously won once, but haven't salvaged their racing career. He may well be visiting the hospital long before he visits the podium again, never mind a 1st place. If he doesn't improve in the final 9 races, let him go. 4/10

Predictions for the Second Half of the Season

A few more eventful races for the teamare likely to be in store, but Hungary was a great opportunity to score highly. If Maldonado had kept his head down like Fernando Alonso did, he could have finished fifth instead, rather than pick up a hat-trick of penalties from the stewards. It's possible that Renault will seek to join up with Lotus at the end of the season and we'll be seeing a different looking squad come 2016, regardless of how this year ends up.

Their 2015 Season in a sentence

“One is a genius, the other's insane” - TV's Pinky and the Brain theme tune, possibly aptly suited to Lotus' 2015 driver pairing.