Lotus has faith that it is on course for some strong results this year, judging by the pace its new car showed over the Australian Grand Prix weekend.
Although Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean endured frustrations in qualifying and the race respectively to leave the team well adrift of the podium, Lotus chiefs are upbeat about the platform it has for 2012.
Team principal Eric Boullier said: "The result was not as rewarding as I would like, for all of the effort we have put in, but if we are able to qualify well [Grosjean] and then race well [Raikkonen] it is promising for the future. If we don't have any stupid race incidents, then we can deliver a strong performance."
Although Grosjean's early exit after a collision with Pastor Maldonado meant there was no proper indication of his potential in the race, Raikkonen was able to deliver some impressive lap times as he climbed up from 17th on the grid to finish seventh. But although Raikkonen's pace was often a match for race winner Jenson Button, Boullier was not getting too carried away as the team packed up and headed for Malaysia.
"We need to look at the race as a whole, but Kimi had a good race and Romain was definitely up to speed so he could have done a very strong race as well," he added. "It is promising for the future, but we will see."
Technical director James Allison said that although a strong performance in Melbourne is no guarantee that a car will be quick elsewhere, he was upbeat about what he has seen.
"You normally look at who does well here and they will do OK all year," said Allison. "We were all right in Jerez, we were all right in Barcelona and we were all right here, so I am pretty happy overall.
"Last year was a pretty tough ride for everyone in the team, grinding out the year with [a car concept] we knew we were trapped with. So to bounce back from this and the [chassis] troubles we had in the first Barcelona test, to show that we can come here and get this done, is great."