Romain Grosjean says Lotus F1 car feels as good as before

The team had to pull out of the first Barcelona test last week after it found a problem with the front suspension of the E20.

The issue meant the team had to make changes to the chassis, also adding an extra kilogram of weight to it.

But, after topping the times on the opening day of the final test today, Grosjean said he was encouraged the car's positive attributes had been kept.

"Not at all, nothing really different," said Grosjean. "It doesn't change much. Exactly the same good feeling as in Jerez, we can push and we can trust the car - and you can really play with it, which is enjoyable.

"When you have a problem you are a little bit wondering what is going on, so we checked all day long that everything was fine - but I knew what we needed to do to repair the car and make it strong, and when we left we got much stronger.

Grosjean said he had no worries about jumping into the car again despite the problems he suffered last week.

"If you are a driver you are mad in a way so you don't think about it. It is like - when you jump in a car you never think it could be dangerous. I know the team is working really hard, I know the team was doing what we needed to and I knew the theoretical numbers said it was fine so no worries."

The Frenchman admitted the team will have to work harder this week after having lost four days of testing, but he reckons it will not be a huge problem.

"We lost some days last week, now we have to work twice as hard to get back those days and hopefully the car is good straight from the beginning," he said.

"We are still finding some good points on it, good set-up items that we can work on and at the moment. Okay, we have missed a bit of running but it is not as bad as we could have expected."