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The Chief Officers' Network - your business advantage / Special Interest / Motorsport / F1: The new Lotus runs - in a straight line

Lotus have said for some time that the first public look at their car would be on 12 February, and yesterday the team took a step closer to that aim.

Under F1 testing rules, there are specific dates set aside for testing - last week in Barcelona, this week in Jerez, for example. All other tests are strictly limited: they are allowed to drive in a straight line, for example, in a simplified shakedown test. But they can't find out if the car will go around corners.

Lotus have designed and tested their car entirely on computer. The engine, from Cosworth, has been bench-tested but it's outside that the car has to sort itself out.

Yesterday's straight-line test went well: nothing fell off and the car didn't take off.

Tomorrow, the team show off the new car at The Royal Horticultural Halls in London's West End, a place known to generations of solicitors as the venue for their professional examinations.

Next week, the car will be in Jerez for the penultimate pre-season testing session when the cruel reality will set in.

Until then, the mere fact that there was a Lotus F1 running at Silverstone yesterday is enough to make a lot of people very happy.

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