Chinese Grand Prix points an F1 'breakthrough' for Lotus

The Frenchman had said he wished he could "delete" 2014 from his racing career, having scored points just twice - in Spain and Monaco in May - but was buoyed by the potential of the Lotus E23.

Lotus showed promise in pre-season testing, but while it appeared to be in the top five fastest cars on the grid, points eluded the team in the opening two races.

However in China, Grosjean qualified an impressive eighth and went on to finish seventh while team-mate Pastor Maldonado ran strongly inside the top 10 before a trio of incidents ruined his race.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if his result was a breakthrough, Grosjean said: "Yes. I believe that all of us have been trying to forget last year and move on to this year.

"Especially me, jumping in the E23, having a good feeling with the car and thinking 'well, that's a proper, good car, I like driving it'.

"That was the first step, but for all of us it's important to see on the board that finally you've scored points."

Grosjean said the speed of the car has been there since the first day of testing and while the team knows which areas to improve, it will take some time to do so.

"I think since day one we know exactly what we can improve on the car," he said. "There are two areas which are clear.

"They were clear in Barcelona, they were clear in Melbourne, clear in Sepang and they are the same [in China].

"So it's very positive that every time we run the car, we say, 'OK, this is the two problems that we have, that's where we can gain a lot of time, so let's work on that'.

"I'm sure there is some good work in the factory and in the wind tunnel trying to improve that and hopefully in Bahrain we can test a few things."