Grosjean says his season starts in China after two retirements in a row

The Lotus driver qualified a strong third in Melbourne but was hit by Pastor Maldonado on the opening lap and had to retire.

At Sepang, the Frenchman also retired early after damaging his car when making contact with Michael Schumacher.

Grosjean says next week's Chinese Grand Prix will mark his proper start to the season, hoping he will have a trouble-free weekend that allows him to show what he and the team can do.

"We can certainly say that we have good performance from the car," said Grosjean's on Lotus's website. "We've got through to Q3 at both races so the car is performing very well. We were able to fight for the front row in qualifying and the pace in the race is very good.

"In China I hope we can have a more standard race with everything in order with regards to the start, the race - and not a crazy amount of water on track as we did at Sepang - and we can finally achieve the good result which we are capable of."

He added: "When you make mistakes you have to admit it and not repeat that mistake. When it's not your fault - well it's not your fault. The first two races were tough and we didn't get a result. On the other hand I know that we can do some great things in the future races. My season starts properly in China."

With Lotus introducing new upgrades to the car in China, Grosjean says he is excited to see how much more competitive they make the car.

"It's great to see how much the factory is behind us and working very hard to give us updates," he added.

"We've had a promising start to the season and we all want to get the best in every area, so a new aerodynamic package is quite exciting; I can't wait to see how it looks and then experience how it feels on track. Then, most importantly, I want to see the lap time gain."

And the Frenchman is convinced his team has taken a significant step forward compared to last year, but that has been masked by the troubled first two races.

"We're definitely a step forwards, we just need to be able to show this in a normal race. We've seen that we are looking good in qualifying where we've been either the second or third fastest team which is very good. There are a few areas we need to improve in the race but we are definitely on course this season."