The Lotus E22 is a

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

racing car Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including ...

Lotus Lotus or LOTUS may refer to: Plants * List of plants known as lotus, a list of various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly: **''Nelumbonaceae'', a single-genus family of aquatic flowering plants, consisting of just two species; ...

to compete in the

2014 Formula One season The 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 68th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 65th Formula One World Championship, a motor racing championship for Formula One cars, recognised by the sport's governing body ...

. The chassis was designed by

Nick Chester Nick Chester (born 22 March 1969) is a motorsport engineer. Early life Chester graduated in engineering from Cambridge University in 1991. Career Chester joined Simtek Research in vehicle simulation, moving to their Formula One entry in 1994 ...

, Chris Cooney, Martin Tolliday and Nicolas Hennel with

Renault Renault S.A., commonly referred to as Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English), is a French Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company curr ...

supplying the team's powertrain. It was driven by

Romain Grosjean Romain David Jeremie Grosjean (; born 17 April 1986) is a French and Swiss racing driver, who competes in the IMSA SportsCar Championship for Lamborghini and serves as a reserve driver in the IndyCar Series for Prema. Grosjean competed under ...

and

Pastor Maldonado Pastor Rafael Maldonado Motta (; born 9 March 1985) is a Venezuelan former racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to . Maldonado won the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix with Williams. After winning the GP2 Series in 2010 with Rapax, Maldona ...

, who replaced

Kimi Räikkönen Kimi-Matias Räikkönen (; born 17 October 1979), nicknamed "the Iceman", is a Finnish racing driver who competed in Formula One between 2001 and 2021 for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, and Alfa Romeo. Räikkönen won the 2007 Formula One ...

after Räikkönen left the team to rejoin

Ferrari Ferrari S.p.A. (; ) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello. Founded in 1939 by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988), the company built Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, its first car in 1940, adopted its current name in 1945, and be ...

. The E22 was designed to use

's new 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged engine, the Energy F1-2014. This was the last car of the Enstone-based team which used

engines until Renault RS16, before a new one-year deal with fellow

Daimler Daimler is a German surname. It may refer to: People * Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900), German inventor, industrialist and namesake of a series of automobile companies * Adolf Daimler (1871–1913), engineer and son of Gottlieb Daimler * Paul Da ...

brand Mercedes.

Design

The E22 had a "tusk" style nosecone design; with a short tusk on the left side and longer tusk on the right side.

Season summary

The team was forced to miss the first pre-season test at

Jerez de la Frontera Jerez de la Frontera () or simply Jerez, also cited in old English-language sources as , is a city and Municipalities of Spain, municipality in the province of Cádiz in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Sp ...

, but released computer-rendered images of the car in the week beforehand, showing a distinctive asymmetrical forked nose design. Romain Grosjean 2014 Singapore FP2

After disappointing results in the first few races, the car picked up pace when the season came to Europe, with

qualifying fifth and coming home in eighth position at the . Lotus nevertheless struggled to earn points throughout the season, with only two more point-scoring finishes at

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

for Grosjean and in the

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for Maldonado. The team would admit that a fundamental design flaw on the chassis was hugely responsible for the poor performance during the season. Also in the

the team tried a different nose design in FP1 similar to the E23 but then they stopped the development of the car relatively early to concentrate on the E23 chassis after developments on the troublesome car brought no improvements to its performance. Therefore, Lotus ended the season a disappointing eighth in the Constructors' Championship standings, compared to fourth in .

Complete Formula One results

( key) † — Driver failed to finish the race, but was classified as they had completed greater than 90% of the race distance.
‡ — Teams and drivers scored double points at the .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lotus E22 E22 2014 Formula One season cars