Can Lotus 'do a Williams' in 2015?

"It's not a bad place to be. It's not one of the four big teams, it's not a team that's going to be world champion, but it's certainly a team that can do a good car. And be where Williams is this year. They were nowhere last year, and with a good engine and a good car they've been at the front this year."

So says Romain Grosjean following an announcement during the inaugural Russian Grand Prix that the Lotus Formula 1 team will switch from Renault to Mercedes engines for next season, a move it hopes will launch it back towards the front of the grid after a trying 2014 campaign.

There are striking parallels in the recent histories of these two proud former giants of F1: Williams has risen like a phoenix from the flames after a disastrous 2013, where it scored just five points and finished a distant ninth in the constructors' championship. But this year it is flying high - battling Ferrari for third in the title race and regularly hunting for podiums.

The story of Lotus is almost the reverse: the Enstone squad was a race winner and regular podium contender in 2013, as it battled Ferrari for third in the constructors' championship (ultimately finishing fourth), but this year is languishing in eighth, having scored just eight points from 16 races.

Of course this is all part of the natural ebb and flow of the competitive order in F1, but Lotus's fall from grace this year is as remarkable as Williams' return to it.

Many credit Williams' switch from Renault to Mercedes power for the first season of these new V6 hybrid turbo engine regulations as the 'silver bullet' that has shot this former champion back to the front of the grid. And many will figure Lotus is banking on a similar outcome when it ditches Renault motivation after the best part of two decades together.

The 2014 season has been a disaster for Lotus © LAT

But in the most technically complicated sport on the planet, it's never that simple. Williams' return to form in 2014 is not solely about the badge on the engine in the back of the FW36 - there's far more to it than that.

Setting the engine aside, let's examine how Lotus stacks up against its rival, and assess whether it really has what it takes to emulate Williams in 2015.

CHASSIS

Williams looked lost under the previous generation of regulations, where powerful front wings and exhaust-blown diffusers ruled the roost. New rules that limit downforce in 2014 - in conjunction with the arrival of very different engines to the V8s that preceded them - allowed Williams to start anew.

What we see this year is a car built around the engine regulations: the FW36 is a stiff, low-drag missile that regularly tops the speed traps. It struggles at street circuits, but is otherwise very effective (if a little lairy to drive) at almost every venue F1 visits.

Lotus by contrast seems to have been caught short by this year's regulations. In 2013 it had a lovely, supple car that was smothered in downforce and kind to its tyres. It wasn't the fastest over a single lap, but by the end of the campaign only Red Bull appeared to have quicker machinery over a race distance.

This year's troublesome E22 has been unreliable and well off the pace, carrying too much drag (partly a legacy of transferring too much of last year's car into this year's design) and kicking like a mule every time its drivers ask it to go to work.

It was competitive in Grosjean's hands in May's Spanish GP (where he qualified fifth before slumping to eighth in the race thanks to a sensor problem on his Renault engine), but has otherwise been confined to the lower ranks of Q2 in dry conditions.

The mid-season ban on FRIC (front and rear interconnected) suspension has only made a sensitive car more difficult to set up.

Lotus technical director Nick Chester says his team know the shortcomings of the E22, and is already working to address them for 2015. "There have been a few problems with the chassis - aerodynamically the car has been too inconsistent, so it's quite a difficult car to drive," he tells AUTOSPORT.

"Particularly when the drivers make a correction they can sometimes lose downforce. It's something we're looking very hard at in the windtunnel for next year. We've got various ideas on how we're going to make the car much less sensitive to steering, yaw and pitch, so we can make it much more driveable."

FACILITIES

Williams struggled for points last year, but it's fighting for podiums now © LAT

Difficult to make direct comparisons, but questions have to be asked of Williams' aerodynamic operations given its shortfall last season. Development of this year's FW36 has been solid, though not everything coming out of Grove has worked, and the team has often had to revert to older parts when new wings haven't delivered as calculated during Friday practice trials.

By contrast Lotus has been strong in this area in recent seasons - perhaps too strong for the current regulations, given the new limits on front wings and diffusers.

The team has abandoned development of this year's car early to focus fully on 2015, and you have to feel that - provided the budget is in place - it will be able to develop well if it can conceive the E23 in the right way. Though if this year is anything to go by, there are still valid doubts.

"It would be very unfair to say it's all been the power unit," admits Chester. "We have had problems with it and we've lost running early in the season because of reliability, which probably didn't help the chassis development, but the chassis development hasn't been strong enough either."

FINANCING

Williams posted a loss of more than £20 million this year as it invested heavily in getting back to the front of the grid. Conversely, Lotus shed staff and capacity as it tried to balance the books after two large loss-making years, which makes its life harder.

It will also take a financial hit (to the tune of roughly $10 million, depending on the size of the prize-money pot) for dropping from fourth to eighth in the constructors' championship this term, though team owner Gerard Lopez dismisses the effect of this and insists the squad is now in good financial shape and ready to push on.

"We're actually very happy because we're pretty much going to break even this year," Lopez tells AUTOSPORT. "Maybe somebody else can prove me wrong, but I think we're the only team in Formula 1 without a major title sponsor that actually doesn't lose money.

"We've received a lot of criticism, and we're fine with it because it's our money and we do whatever we want. But it was invested in the right places so we have up-to-date CFD, new windtunnel, new driver simulator system. Essentially we invested quite a bit in the factory, and I think it's fine.

"We're where we want to be - breaking even and still with a team of 477 people. That's a huge step from last year, but it was very much going in the right direction anyhow. We knew we had those investments to make, so we're good, we're happy."

Lopez is happy with Lotus's finances © LAT

The key this winter is whether staff are also convinced of the financial health of the team and thus ready to commit as Lotus strives to bounce back on the track.

TECHNICAL STAFF

Williams recruited ex-Enstone man Pat Symonds and former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley to lead its technical team after a mid-2013 reshuffle, and is reaping the rewards.

In Symonds, Williams now has a technical leader that has masterminded several world championship successes over the past 20 years, and someone who has brought greater focus to its aerodynamic department, while Smedley has the trackside nous and force of personality to ensure the race team delivers to the best of its ability at each grand prix. Williams has also recruited several ex-Lotus rank-and-file staff to bolster its operation.

Lotus also lost two key personnel over the last 18 months, as talented technical director James Allison departed for Ferrari (where he is now tasked with masterminding the Scuderia's own revival after a long fallow period), before team principal Eric Boullier left to join McLaren as the Woking outfit's new racing director.

Head of trackside operations Alan Permane remains a cornerstone of the Lotus operation (in the crucial equivalent of Smedley's role); the question is whether Chester - a longtime Enstone man, well-regarded by Allison, who became technical director last May - and deputy team principal Federico Gastaldi (former Lotus business director) can adequately fill the shoes left behind by their predecessors.

Given Lopez appears to have no plans to recruit F1 heavyweights from outside the team, if this revival is to come it will have to come from within.

"We're still quite a sizeable team and the technical leadership is still pretty much the same one we had," argues Lopez. "There have been a couple of changes in aero, but the head is still the same. There have been changes in CFD, which is probably where we had the most changes. But the car hasn't been great this year.

"There's not much to learn - we know where the issues lie with this year's car. We had the exact same thing four years ago with the forward-facing exhaust, and what we learned from there was essentially [turned into] two very good years. And until the big [2014] regulation change we were one of the more performing teams.

"We're hoping to do the same thing [in 2015] - nothing is written in stone in this sport and everyone else is going to push too - but the Mercedes engine does give you a nice basis to work on."

The switch to Mercedes has boosted Grosjean's chances of staying at Lotus © LAT

DRIVERS

The drivers are the last piece in the jigsaw, but one of the most important. Williams has nurtured Valtteri Bottas since the end of the Finn's first season in Formula 3 in 2009.

He was a star in the unreasonably slow car that was the FW35 last year, and has emerged as one of the standout drivers of this campaign, as he's danced the rapid FW36 on a knife-edge and occasionally carried the fight to the dominant works Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

In team-mate Felipe Massa (recruited after a barren period at Ferrari), Williams has found a fast driver rejuvenated by being shot of the shackles of Maranello politics and the relentless competitive force of Fernando Alonso on the other side of the garage. But, the Brazilian has not scored as many points as he should have this year.

Grosjean's F1 career has been a rollercoaster. He proved his worth in 2013, but has cut a frustrated figure while wrestling with the shortcomings of the E22. Convincing him to stay on for 2015 will be crucial if Lotus is to make the most of its new Mercedes-engined dawn.

Ex-Williams driver Pastor Maldonado joined Lotus this year (bringing his PDVSA millions with him) after finally losing his rag with the uncompetitive FW35. He has been frustratingly crash-prone, but - unlike his team-mate - the Venezuelan is a grand prix winner, and perhaps with the right machinery underneath him could be a force to be reckoned with.

But you could say that about most drivers... On balance, Lotus won't suffer on the driving strength, so long as Grosjean stays put and Maldonado makes fewer mistakes.

CONCLUSION

On the face of it, there's no reason why Lotus couldn't emulate Williams and become a force to be reckoned with once more in F1. It has capable staff, excellent facilities, a decent driver line-up, and now the best engine on the grid.

But question marks remain over how much money the team will have to play with. Williams spent heavily to get back in shape, and Lotus will struggle to keep pace if the budget isn't there to develop.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. The main reason Lotus has struggled so badly this year is that the E22 simply isn't a very good car.

Team Enstone has tried to give itself a head-start on its replacement (the E23), but if it builds another bad one, that will greatly reduce its chances of being competitive again in 2015 - no matter what engine it sticks in the back.