Just 3 weeks before the new 2014 cars are present to run for the first time, Lotus has revealed that E22 will not join to the other teams in the test starts on January 28.

Lotus technical director Nick Chester said that the team planned to launch their car after Jerez.

“We’re goes to keep our car under wraps a little longer” he said. “We’ve decided that attending the Jerez test isn’t ideal for our build and development programme.

“We are likely to unveil the car before attend the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we really be able to put the car through that paces in representative conditions.”

“We’ve undertaken chassis fits for Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado. Certainly, our partners who have seen the car have reported themselves to be very impressed” he said.

Chester said he was still upbeat about the potential of the E22.

“From our perspective the figures look promising and development has positive,” he said. “We are very much working with very little idea of what the other teams are doing. This is the first year of radically different regulations which means that all teams developing their cars along potentially different avenues. We think we have a very good solution to the challenge and hopefully this will be when the E22 turns their wheels in anger”.