The Enstone-based Lotus team had plenty of work to do after the first two rounds of practice for the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.

No 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen finished bottom of the timesheet in first practice due to a rear-wing issue with his car and the problems continued to plague him, with the Finn 13th and 1.863 seconds down after the second session.

Raikkonen said: “It’s not often that you have a perfect car on Friday and there are certain things we have to improve.

“To be honest, it doesn’t matter if you are the slowest car on Friday if you are fast for the rest of the weekend.

“We now just need to look at the information and change the usual things on the car to improve it. We’re aiming for better results than what we’ve achieved from the last two weekends.”

Teammate Romain Grosjean finished 15th and said afterwards: “We’re not where we would expect to be, partly due to the low temperature, which we didn’t expect.

“It’s never easy to learn a new track in varying conditions, but it was good to get out there and find my way around.”

The Grove-built Williams cars also struggled, with Pastor Maldonado 16th and Bruno Senna 18th.

Senna said: “I don’t know the circuit particularly well so it is a steep learning curve, but I’m learning all the time.”

Meanwhile, the FIA have confirmed the Bahrain Grand Prix will go ahead on April 22, ending speculation that it could be cancelled to due to civil unrest in the country.