Lotus E22

The Lotus E22 is a Formula One racing car designed by Lotus to compete in the 2014 Formula One season. The chassis was designed by Nick Chester, Chris Cooney, Martin Tolliday, Daniele Casanova and Nicolas Hennel with Renault supplying the team's powertrain. It was driven by Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado, who replaced Kimi Räikkönen after Räikkönen left the team to rejoin Ferrari. The E22 was designed to use Renault's new 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged engine, the Energy F1-2014. This was the last car of the Enstone-based team which used Renault engines until Renault RS16, before a new one-year deal with fellow Daimler brand Mercedes. The E22 had a "tusk" style nosecone design; with a short tusk on the left side and longer tusk on the right side. The team was forced to miss the first pre-season test at Jerez de la Frontera, but released computer-rendered images of the car in the week beforehand, showing a distinctive asymmetrical forked nose design. After disappointing results in the first few races, the car picked up pace when the season came to Europe, with Romain Grosjean qualifying fifth and coming home in eighth position at the Spanish Grand Prix. Lotus nevertheless struggled to earn points throughout the season, with only two more point-scoring finishes at Monaco for Grosjean and in the United States for Maldonado. The team would admit that a fundamental design flaw on the chassis was hugely responsible for the poor performance during the season.