The Highs and Lows of Lotus F1's Return to Formula 1

The modern-day Lotus team bears little resemblance to the original Team Lotus, who competed in Formula One for almost four decades before their final grand prix in 1994.

It is fashionable to suggest the only similarity between the two constructors is their name—and what's in a name?—but that would be to miss the point, for both are and were driven by spirit and soul.

In a sport of deviance and derision, they are treasured for doing things the "proper way," competing in a modest, fair but hard manner and always allowing the passion of racing to outweigh the act of racing itself.

Alongside Williams, Lotus are everyone's second-favourite team, and since the return of that legendary name at the beginning of 2012, they have provided some of the most memorable moments of the last decade.

The team lured 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen back to the sport—preventing one of the most natural talents in F1 history from going to waste in rallying—and transformed Romain Grosjean, a fast but flawed youngster, into a potential world champion.

Lotus' recent decline, to the point where their very existence was under threat at one stage, has been among the saddest F1 storylines of the last two years.

But with Renault's long-awaited takeover edging ever closer, the good times are soon to return to the Enstone-based team.

From the disintegration of their relationship with Raikkonen to the growth of Grosjean—and all the success, near-misses and calamities in between—here are the highs and lows of the modern-day Lotus operation.

In 2011, Lotus—running under the guise of Renault—fielded three different drivers alongside Vitaly Petrov over the course of the 19-race season, with Nick Heidfeld deputising for the injured Robert Kubica before being replaced by Bruno Senna at the halfway stage.

Such instability—and, in truth, mediocrity—contributed to the team's least convincing season for several years, and for 2012, Lotus opted for a vibrant match of experience and youth.

The team lured Kimi Raikkonen back to Formula One after a two-year exile in the World Rally Championship, snatching the 2007 world champion from under the noses of Williams, but it was his new team-mate who made an instant impression.

Romain Grosjean made seven starts for Renault in the second half of 2009, under extremely difficult circumstances as the team dealt with the fallout of the infamous "Crashgate" scandal, before tumbling into obscurity.

After winning the GP2 championship in 2011, though, Grosjean forced his way back into Lotus' plans. He marked his second debut for Team Enstone by qualifying third on the grid for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on a day Raikkonen, the star attraction, failed to progress from Q1.

Grosjean's performance in qualifying at Albert Park was, to all intents and purposes, the birth of a future star, but his debut weekend soon unravelled when the five red lights went out the following day.

The Frenchman was swarmed at the start, tumbling to sixth at the first corner, and on Lap 2, he found himself vulnerable to his future team-mate.

Pastor Maldonado, driving the Williams, benefited from a tow on the exit of Turns 11 and 12 before completing a hard yet fair move on the Lotus at Turn 13.

Unwilling to concede yet another position and frustrated that his good work in qualifying was already going to waste, however, Grosjean lurked on the outside of the corner only to receive terminal suspension damage when Maldonado straightened his car on exit.

Not for the first time in 2012, Grosjean's race was over before it really started.

Disregarding his qualifying disaster in Australia, Kimi Raikkonen had performed steadily upon his return to F1 at the beginning of 2012.

He recovered to seventh in Melbourne and overcame a five-place grid penalty to finish fifth in the wet in Malaysia, but it was at the third round in China where Raikkonen completed his transition from rally- to race-driver mode.

As was the case at Sepang, Raikkonen qualified fifth at the Shanghai International Circuit and eventually found himself second to Nico Rosberg, en route to his maiden grand prix win as the race entered its latter stages.

On a two-stop strategy, however, Raikkonen's Pirellis hit "the cliff"—the point where ageing tyres suddenly lose grip—and he tumbled down the field. 

From a likely podium finish, the Lotus driver was defenceless in wheel-to-wheel combat and eventually crossed the line in 14th place, 50 seconds behind Rosberg. 

For Kimi, it was a brutal reminder of how different F1 now was from the sport he left behind at the end of 2009.

The only response to falling off the cliff is to climb back up the mountain, and after the disappointment of China, Lotus recorded their first podium finish in over 12 months in the Bahrain Grand Prix and moved up to third in the constructors' standings.

Raikkonen's surge to second from 11th on the grid was his first podium appearance since Belgium '09, and Grosjean, after scoring his first F1 points in Shanghai, finally had something to show for his speed.

Yet such was the pace of the Lotus E20s at Sakhir that the team were left to reflect on a missed opportunity to secure their first victory since 2008.

On Lap 36 of 57, Raikkonen chased eventual winner Sebastian Vettel down the pit straight and seemed set to pass the two-time world champion for the lead, but he fluffed his lines—darting one way, then the other—and before he knew it, the chance was gone, never to return.

Did the Iceman, one of the most confident, calmest and cleanest racers in F1, hesitate? Or was he, still adjusting to DRS-assisted F1 machinery, simply caught off-guard by how quickly he closed on Vettel?

Either way, there was a certain rustiness about Raikkonen's driving that prevented a good day being even better.

The 2012 season was celebrated for producing seven different winners of the first seven races, and for much of the European Grand Prix, it seemed as though Grosjean would make it eight from eight.

After claiming his second podium at the previous round in Canada, recovering well from a first-lap retirement in Monaco, Grosjean was elevated to a new level of confidence at the Valencia street circuit, where he muscled past Maldonado at Turn 1 and later overtook Lewis Hamilton around the outside.

That elevated him to second, and when the safety car appeared, reeling Vettel into his grasp, Grosjean and Lotus were in an incredibly strong position. 

At the restart, however, the Frenchman was the victim of the Overtake of the Season by Fernando Alonso, who danced his Ferrari around the outside of Turn 1.

Vettel's engine failure on Lap 33 promoted Grosjean back up to second, leaving only the Ferrari standing between him and a first grand prix victory.

But his chances of overthrowing the phenomenon that is Alonso Power ended just seven laps later when Grosjean himself suffered a loss of power, prematurely ending what had been his most impressive performance until that point.

Although Raikkonen benefited from the late-race scuffle between Maldonado and Hamilton to salvage second place, Lotus were left to wonder just what they might have achieved had Grosjean's Renault V8 survived.

With a win and four further podium finishes at the circuit during his initial F1 career, Raikkonen had always excelled at the Hungaroring and, as such, a genuine indication of how well he had readjusted to F1 was always bound to come at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The problem for Kimi, however, was that Hamilton had also developed a fondness for the venue, having claimed two pole positions and two victories in five appearances between 2007 and 2011.

And when the two went head-to-head at the track, Lewis was just a little hungrier.

In the closing stages, second-placed Raikkonen again defied his qualifying result to pressurise the leader, but despite hounding Hamilton around Budapest for several laps, he was unable to launch a sustained, meaningful attack on the McLaren.

Another near-miss may have been too much to take, although Grosjean's third podium finish—the Frenchman ultimately finished P3 after qualifying second and tracking Hamilton over the first half of the race—softened the blow.

In Hungary, Grosjean and Hamilton had stood side-by-side on the podium, spraying champagne, parading their silverware and sharing their success.

Four weeks later, though, Lewis was out of the car and in Romain's face, asking what—if anything—had gone through his mind at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix.

Grosjean's excitability on the opening laps of a race, previously the bad habit of a driver in his first full season of F1, sparked one of the most terrifying crashes of the modern era at Spa-Francorchamps, where he became a danger to himself and all around him.

His failure to check his mirrors off the line saw Grosjean edge Hamilton onto the grass, with the McLaren losing control and pushing the Lotus into the crowd ahead, launching the Frenchman over Sergio Perez's Sauber and Alonso, the championship leader.

Against the backdrop of his previous opening-lap misdemeanours, and at a time driving standards had come under scrutiny both in F1 and junior single-seater categories, the authorities had to make an example of Grosjean.

As reported by BBC Sport's Andrew Benson, he was handed a fine of £40,000 and banned from the next race in Italy, forcing Lotus to run reserve driver Jerome d'Ambrosio alongside Raikkonen at Monza.

If Grosjean's landing at Spa hadn't knocked any sense into him, it was hoped that suffering the humiliation of being the first F1 driver in almost two decades to be banned from a race would do the trick.

Old habits die hard, however, and after an under-the-radar performance in his comeback race in Singapore, he regained his status as the grid's resident bulldozer at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Starting from fourth, Grosjean took extra care to avoid making contact with Perez at the first corner, but in doing so ploughed into the rear of Mark Webber, spinning the Red Bull off the circuit.

A 10-second stop-go penalty, which ruined his race, was the punishment for his latest crime, but most of the damage was done to Grosjean's pride after Webber told BBC Sport:

I haven't seen what happened at the start but the guys confirmed that it was the first-lap nutcase again Grosjean.

The rest of us are trying to fight for some decent results each weekend but he is trying to get to the third corner as fast as he can at every race.

He needs to have a look at himself. It was completely his fault. How many mistakes can you make? How many times can you make the same error? It's quite embarrassing at this level for him.

Webber, per the same source, wondered whether Grosjean was in need of "another holiday" and suggested the Frenchman should be forced to start separately from his peers.

He was, you suspect, only half-joking.

When Hamilton's McLaren came to a halt on Lap 20 of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Kimi knew this was his moment. He'd made a mess of it in Bahrain, and the team didn't quite have enough when it really mattered in Hungary.

But he was now, once again, in the lead of a race—and he was never going to let it go.

Raikkonen's management of his race—cutting the phone line to the pit wall with those famous radio messages—was not only indicative of his control at the front, but how he needed to do it alone if he was to truly rediscover and relearn the art of winning.

His victory vindicated Lotus' decision to sign Raikkonen at the end of 2011, particularly in the context of Mercedes' failed gamble in bringing Michael Schumacher—who had just a single third-placed finish to show for his three years' work—out of retirement.

After nabbing their win, Lotus retreated back into their comfort zone for the final two rounds of 2012 as though their work for the year was done.

While being below their best was still good enough for Raikkonen and Grosjean to claim sixth and seventh, respectively, at the Circuit of the Americas, a lack of discipline spread through the team at the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix when, in changeable conditions, Lotus might have added to their victory tally.

After failing to progress from Q1, Grosjean's season ended in appropriate fashion as he threw his car into the wall just five laps into the race, while Mr Consistent also had a patchy end to the year.

Raikkonen had scored a point in all but one race in 2012, but he tried his best to throw it all away while negotiating the final hurdle, losing several positions after locking up and running wide at Turn 4 on the opening lap, an effort to avoid hitting an over-cautious Vettel.

Later, he was too clever for his own good after running off track and attempting to rejoin the race via an old section of the Interlagos circuit, only to be forced into spinning his car and returning on the conventional route, losing several seconds.

Kimi recovered to salvage a point for 10th place, but it was a deeply underwhelming way to finish what had been an outstanding year for the dark horses.

In a winter of relatively stable regulations, Lotus' 2013 car retained many of the qualities of its predecessor, with the E21 particularly sympathetic to its tyres as Pirelli again pushed the limits.

McLaren's inexplicable decision to experiment with an all-new chassis—leading them down a cul de sac in development terms—allowed Mercedes to break into the Big Four, but Lotus' knowledge of what it took to run consistently at the front of the grid paid dividends.

In a season opener that, at one stage, could have been anyone's, it was Raikkonen who triumphed, claiming victory by more than 12 seconds despite starting as low as seventh.

After a 2012 campaign in which the team sometimes failed to maximise their potential, now they could win from anywhere.

Anything was possible.

Twelve months earlier in China, Raikkonen snatched defeat from the jaws of victory after falling off the cliff, but he was now snatching a victory (of sorts) from the fangs of fallibility.

Kimi started on the front row at Shanghai and ran solidly in the opening phase of the race, before a collision with Perez's McLaren on Lap 16 shaved the tip of his nose.

Despite driving with a gaping hole at the front of his car and damage to his front wing, Raikkonen's pace was almost unaffected.

According to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson, he only "lost about 0.15 seconds a lap in performance" over the remaining 40 laps as he simply adapted his driving to cope with the loss of downforce and ultimately finish second behind Alonso.

As we said, anything was possible.

A member of the team since 2005, James Allison had been central to Lotus' success. By mid-2013, he had established himself behind Red Bull's Adrian Newey as one of the most astute, innovative engineering minds in F1.

At a time several leading teams were underperforming—Ferrari, McLaren and Williams had spent years chasing their tails, while Mercedes were still struggling to challenge for major honours—Allison had become one of the most wanted men in the paddock.

And like a mid-table football team with a world-class forward in their team, Lotus—without the limitless resources and financial strength of their full-blown factory rivals—were victims of their own success, vulnerable to losing their most valuable employees.

Allison's departure, as reported by F1 journalist James Allen, was announced ahead of May's Spanish Grand Prix, with his return to Ferrari announced in July.

Grosjean clung on to his seat at the end of 2012 after Lotus decided the pace and promise he showed outweighed the frustration of his repeated on-track incidents.

According to Sky Sports' Mike Wise, Grosjean admitted to seeking the help of a psychologist over the winter, and while the Frenchman stayed out of trouble in the early stages of 2013, his record of one podium finish in the opening five races suggested his renewed sense of self-preservation had somehow blunted his speed.

Despite suffering from KERS-map problems, it seemed Grosjean was struggling to find a balance between caution and aggression, but he lost all sense of stability as F1 arrived in Monaco.

Grosjean's car was at its safest when it was dangling from the arm of the crane in the principality, where the Frenchman crashed on four separate occasions in the space of three days, reverting to his old habits and entering the vicious circle by receiving a 10-place grid penalty for the following round in Canada.

Raikkonen, meanwhile, recovered to 10th after suffering a late puncture, which led to the Finn threatening to hit Perez over team radio after their latest collision.

With a fifth-place finish in the British Grand Prix, Raikkonen broke one of the most remarkable records in F1 to provide further proof of just how strong his working relationship with Lotus had become.

His 25th consecutive top-10 finish, per F1 Fanatic's Keith Collantine, saw him overtake Michael Schumacher's record—set in 2003, albeit with a different scoring system—for the longest point-scoring streak in the sport's history.

Raikkonen would extend his run to 27 before suffering the first retirement since his return to F1 in the Belgian GP.

On the day Andy Murray finally lived up to a nation's expectations to become the first British champion of the Wimbledon tennis tournament for 77 years, another coming-of-age story was nearing completion at the Nurburgring.

Having failed to score a point in the last four races, as his team-mate set a point-scoring record, Grosjean produced his most complete performance to date in the German Grand Prix, harrying Vettel in the latter stages.

When, with five laps remaining, it became clear that Grosjean would be unable to pass the Red Bull alone, he had the maturity to switch positions with Raikkonen to let his team-mate have a shot at passing Vettel.

And while Grosjean finished behind his high-profile team-mate once again, the Lotus drivers, for the first time, were equals.

The crash kid was now a man.

Lotus were fortunate to keep hold of Raikkonen in the summer, especially after Vettel told BBC Sport's Andrew Benson how he would "prefer" to be partnered by the Finn, rather than Alonso, at Red Bull Racing in 2014.

Red Bull's eventual signing of Daniel Ricciardo, the Toro Rosso driver, to replace the retiring Webber saw one door slam in Kimi's face, but the Australian youngster's promotion had a domino effect on the driver market.

After four seasons as Alonso's doormat, Felipe Massa was ejected into the wilderness by Ferrari, who replaced the Brazilian with the man who—as reported by Sky Sports' James Galloway—they paid £20 million to leave the team at the end of '09.

Ferrari's volte-face was a moral victory for Raikkonen, but a damaging blow to Lotus, who took the news badly.

After Allison's exit, this was yet more evidence that the team, for all their recent success, simply didn't possess the gravitas of the major outfits.

Did Raikkonen's presence at Lotus have a counterproductive effect on Grosjean?

Did the team's obsession with their world champion, a driver they knew they were fortunate to have, leave the other guy in the other car feeling undervalued? And were all those first-lap incidents the result of a young man's desperation to be noticed?

It was the only conclusion to make following the announcement of Raikkonen's switch to Ferrari, after which Grosjean grew almost overnight into the role of team leader.

In Korea, the Frenchman claimed his third podium of the season and performed even better at Suzuka, where despite starting fourth, he emerged from the first corner in the lead.

He threatened to stay there, too, leading much of the Japanese Grand Prix.

In the midst of their nine-race winning run, however, Red Bull were not to be contained. After Vettel passed the Lotus on Lap 41, Webber had to wait until the penultimate tour to overtake the first-lap nutcase for second place.

Their biggest asset may have been preparing to leave, but Romain ensured there was life after Kimi.

Whenever a driver announces his signing for a new outfit, it is remarkable how quickly a team's central focus becomes the enemy within.

Raikkonen had carried Lotus' hopes and dreams since the beginning of 2012. He had been the embodiment of their success and, in PR terms, their biggest attraction.

But in the closing laps of the Indian Grand Prix—by which he had, to all intents and purposes, departed Lotus psychologically—he was little more than an irritant.

Grosjean's momentum had been halted in qualifying at the Buddh International Circuit, where he failed to progress from Q1, but another strong performance in the race allowed him to close on third-placed Raikkonen.

Struggling with his tyres, however, Kimi was slow to hand the position to his team-mate on a narrow track with few clear overtaking opportunities, and the pit wall became increasingly irate as Massa's Ferrari lurked in Grosjean's rear-view mirrors.

A harshly worded radio message from trackside operations director Alan Permane, urging the No. 7 car to move aside, received a potty-mouthed response from Raikkonen (above), and the two continued bickering in the pit lane after the chequered flag.

It was the first sign of tension between team and outgoing driver, and there was more to come.

Raikkonen was late in arriving at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, eventually showing up on the Friday of the race weekend after missing the allotted media day at the Yas Marina circuit.

It was initially thought it was simply a hangover of his disagreement with the Lotus hierarchy in India, but it soon became clear that Raikkonen had, in fact, been persuaded not to go on strike.

Normally allergic to camera crews and microphones, Raikkonen had no problem in using the media to fight his corner and reveal the true extent of Lotus' mounting financial concerns, telling Sky Sports' Pete Gill and James Galloway:

I came here only because hopefully we've found an understanding on the certain issues that we've been having.

[...]

I enjoy racing, I enjoy driving but a big part of it is business and sometimes when that's not dealt with like it should we end up in an unfortunate situation. But we have to put the line sometime and if it goes over that it's not really my fault anymore.

[...]

(The argument in India is) a small part of it. Those things shouldn't happen but unfortunately it happened and that's not really the issue. It's the other stuff and obviously all the things come together in the end.

It's easy to say that's the reason why I didn't almost come, it's not that simple. Sometimes it's not very nice when you hear that you don't have the interests of the team [first] and then you've been paid zero euro the whole year.

So it doesn't put you in the best place, but that's how it goes and hopefully we found an understanding on both sides how we should deal with the situation right now and fix the issues and try to finish as well as we can.

Despite his willingness to resolve those problems, Raikkonen's relationship with the team went beyond the point of no return after qualifying, when he was disqualified due to a technical infringement, before crashing out at the first corner of the race.

Not one to hang around, television pictures showed Raikkonen leaving the circuit soon after the accident, and he was not to return, missing the final two races of the season to undergo a back operation. 

He was replaced by Heikki Kovalainen—who made his debut for Team Enstone in 2007—in the United States and Brazil, but he failed to score a point.

Kimi's premature departure and Kovalainen's struggles effectively made Lotus a one-man team in the final two races of 2013.

Such pressure, at a time Lotus remained in contention to pip Ferrari to third in the constructors' championship, would probably have had a detrimental effect on Grosjean just months earlier.

But by that stage, he was relishing life as Lotus' central focus.

He claimed his fourth podium finish in five races in the United States Grand Prix, splitting the Red Bulls at the Circuit of the Americas on a day the fourth-placed finisher took the chequered flag almost 30 seconds behind Vettel.

In transcending the level of machinery, Grosjean was showing the hallmarks of some of the greatest drivers in the sport's history.

Lotus had made no secret of their desire to sign Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg to replace Raikkonen for 2014, with team principal Eric Boullier telling BBC Sport's Andrew Benson how the German was "a fast and talented driver."

Hulkenberg's lack of sponsorship funds at a time the team were in desperate need of an injection of cash, however, left Lotus relying on a partnership with the mysterious Quantum Motorsports consortium to seal the deal and safeguard their future.

This, according to Benson in a separate BBC Sport article, resulted in the team finalising contracts with both Hulkenberg and Maldonado, who had negotiated his release from Williams and carried £30 million in sponsorship, giving themselves room for manoeuvre whatever the outcome.

When Quantum failed to put their money where their mouth was, Maldonado was signed and Hulkenberg ended the saga by rejoining Force India days later.

Lotus had signed a grand prix winner and a very fast racing driver—forming one of the most explosive driver lineups on the 2014 grid—but it was evident they had been forced to choose money over talent.

Boullier had never worked in F1 prior to becoming the Renault team principal at the beginning of 2010, but in four years he had established himself as one of the finest leaders in the paddock.

He had transformed a team on their knees into serial podium finishers, occasional race winners and dark horses in the championship, and he was credited with the rise and rise of Grosjean.

And just like Allison and Raikkonen before him, he was a wanted man, with McLaren signing Boullier to replace Martin Whitmarsh as team boss (albeit under the title of racing director).

At a time Lotus' biggest assets were walking away, Boullier felt like someone who could guide them through a difficult period.

His departure, though, was confirmation that the team were a sinking ship.

Following the largest wave of regulation changes the sport had ever seen, the first pre-season test of 2014 was crucial as teams and drivers had their first experience of the V6 turbo power units.

Ten teams, all keen to establish a head start, were present at the Jerez circuit at the end of January, but Lotus were the odd ones out having decided to miss the four-day session, sacrificing mileage in favour of extra development time.

Their twin-tusked E22 chassis was not unveiled until the second test in Bahrain in mid-February, and it was unable to make up for lost time.

Hindered by their Renault powertrain, the most unreliable to be produced by the three engine manufacturers, Lotus completed just 238 laps over eight days of winter running as eventual world champions Mercedes racked up a grand total of 975 laps in three tests, per Sky Sports' William Esler.

Lotus were condemned to a season playing catch-up.

Renault's ongoing struggles to find power and reliability left Lotus without a point in the opening three races of 2014. And as F1 arrived in China for the fourth round, the team's problems were not limited to the engine department.

Maldonado had initiated a bizarre crash at the previous event in Bahrain—punting Esteban Gutierrez's Sauber into the night sky after a relatively minor, low-speed collision at the first corner—and created havoc without the help of his friends in practice at Shanghai.

In FP1, he ran off the track and spun while adjusting a steering-wheel setting and, just hours later, knocked a wheel off his car in a crash at the circuit's notorious pit entry.

Television pictures showed a group of Lotus mechanics laughing among themselves during replays of the incident, and although they had only worked alongside Pastor for a few months, it was obvious he was no Kimi Raikkonen.

A three-week break after China wasn't enough time for Maldonado to change his ways, and it didn't take him long to find the barriers at the Spanish Grand Prix, crashing at Turn 3 without setting a time in Q1.

His early elimination from qualifying, two years since his solitary victory at the track, was a reflection of how far he had fallen.

Lotus' fall from grace had raised concerns over whether Grosjean's old habits would also reappear now he was back in the pack, but the Frenchman produced a defiant, soothing performance at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Grosjean dragged his car to fifth on the grid, ahead of both Ferraris and five Mercedes-powered cars, before overcoming sensor issues and inconsistent power delivery—according to BBC Sport's Allan McNish—to finish eighth, scoring Lotus' first points in a race in which he was always bound to go backwards.

The vices of his machinery had prevented Grosjean from building upon his strong end to 2013, but he was still in the form of his life.

As the slowest, tightest and twistiest venue on the calendar, Monaco was set to offer a true indication of just how superior the Lotus chassis was to the engine coughing it along the straights.

But the idea that Renault's frailties had somehow concealed a potential race-winning machine was rubbished after Grosjean and Maldonado, a Monte Carlo specialist, qualified 14th and 15th, respectively, proving the car—despite its innovative nose design—was not exactly brilliant either.

Lotus' weekend took a turn for the worst when Maldonado failed to start due to a fuel-pump problem, but Grosjean again carried the team to success, driving maturely and cleanly to cross the line ninth—which became eighth after Jules Bianchi's post-race penalty was applied.

On a day it would have been all too easy to get involved in someone else's incident, such was the unusually high attrition rate in Monaco, four points was a brilliant result for Grosjean—particularly in the context of his own dramas at the principality in 2012 and '13.

Those two eighth-place finishes were as good as it got for Lotus in 2014, and after two races without ever looking like scoring a point, Grosjean flirted with the idea of leaving Lotus for the first time.

The 2014 transfer market had the potential to be one of the most dramatic in several years, with seats potentially available at Ferrari, McLaren-Honda and—depending on the relationship between Hamilton and Rosberg in the heat of the championship battle—Mercedes in '15.

Without a competitive car to keep his currency high, Grosjean used the media to raise awareness of his availability and ensure he didn't become a forgotten man, telling Sky Sports' James Galloway ahead of the British Grand Prix:

You always think about your future. I’ve been here for a little bit, I know the team very well, but on the other hand I want to win races as well.

[...]

It’s early stages and what I really want now is to win my first grand prix of course—and why not trying to become World Champion? So that’s what I’m going to focus on. I know that here we have some very good people and the team is back to a fighting level, and that helps things.

I miss fighting for podiums and I miss drinking the champagne on Sunday afternoon. That’s what I want—that’s what all of us want. When you taste it once you don’t not want to taste it for a long time.

Vettel's surprise switch from Red Bull to Ferrari, coupled with Alonso's return to McLaren, meant Grosjean was never really in contention to move to a leading team for 2015.

It was, however, telling that he waited as long as possible to confirm his stay with Lotus, with his new deal announced at the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP (in other words, when it became obvious who was going where for 2015).

Grosjean had made his intentions clear, and he was just waiting to pounce on the first opportunity to come his way.

Still with a tendency to throw his car into the barriers, particularly in practice sessions, Maldonado had made a poor impression at Lotus in 2014.

And after 16 rounds, there was a very real danger that the Venezuelan would be among those without a point to their name at the end of the season.

Fortunately, however, the financial troubles suffered by Marussia and Caterham sidelined both teams from the United States Grand Prix, leaving Maldonado with fewer things to hit and, therefore, with a good chance of registering his first top-10 finish of the season.

At a venue where his relationship with Williams went beyond the point of no return in 2013, he seized the opportunity, finally proving his worth to his new employers by just missing out on Q3—but starting within the top 10 due to a penalty elsewhere—and finishing ninth.

Grosjean should have joined his team-mate in the points—an ambitious move by Jean-Eric Vergne in the latter stages left the Frenchman with damage—but nothing could overshadow Maldonado on a day Pastor prospered.

Those two points were the last Lotus would score in 2014, sealing their eighth-place finish in the constructors' championship.

For the second consecutive year, Lotus made a late start to pre-season testing.

But while their decision to miss the first test of 2014 had been made weeks in advance, their absence on the opening day at Jerez was something of a mystery.

The team's trucks eventually arrived later that day, and the Mercedes-powered E23 Hybrid, once it finally took to the track an hour into Day 2, showed a promising turn of speed—with Grosjean telling GPUpdate how "the whole package" was much "better" than the 2014 mess.

Not for the first time in 2015, however, what the team did off track provoked more discussion than how they fared on it.

Lotus had signed Jolyon Palmer as their official reserve driver for the season, but the 2014 GP2 champion was soon joined by Carmen Jorda and Adderly Fong, both of whom arrived in development-driver roles.

Their job titles, of course, meant they would never be allowed within touching distance of an F1 car, but the signings of Jorda and Fong—and the very act of signing five drivers—showed Lotus needed to generate more cash and exposure from somewhere.

Lotus' much-improved pace in 2015 was evident from the very first round, with Grosjean and Maldonado qualifying in the top 10 for the Australian Grand Prix.

But both their afternoons ended in a flash after Maldonado was an innocent victim of the first-corner silliness between Raikkonen and Felipe Nasr, while Grosjean suffered an instant loss of power and crawled back to the pit lane.

On a day 15 cars made the start, 11 cars reached the chequered flag and only five drivers finished on the lead lap, a double-retirement was the most disappointing outcome when a top-five finish was a realistic aim.

Unlike the previous year, however, at least Lotus knew they had the tools at their disposal.

After two races of 2015, only two teams—Mercedes and Ferrari—could claim to be truly content with their start to the season.

The rest? For reasons relating to the unreliability of their engines, frustrations with their interim cars or simply their failure to get results, they were all in a crisis of some sort.

Lotus were in the latter category after a frustrating Malaysian Grand Prix in which Grosjean was spun by Perez and Maldonado retired with braking issues, preventing the team from taking full advantage of their early season pace.

They finally had something to show for their speed in China, though, where their season finally took off. Kind of.

Romain was as solid as ever—starting eighth, finishing seventh—and Pastor was Pastor: a promising first phase of the race followed by self-destruction, missing the pit entry, spinning off the track and making contact with Jenson Button before retiring with more brake problems.

Maldonado tried his best to overshadow his team-mate—and probably succeeded—but even that couldn't dampen the team's delight.

"It looks like in the race, we are the fourth quickest car," Permane later told Autosport's Lawrence Barretto and Ben Anderson.

When Lotus announced the signing of Maldonado in late 2013, the team's official Twitter account had a little fun posting an image of their drivers tangling in a GP2 race years earlier.

Despite their notorious reputations, never would the team have imagined that Grosjean and Maldonado would come to blows under the Lotus umbrella—but that is exactly what happened after just four laps of the Spanish Grand Prix.

After watching his team-mate run wide at Turns 1 and 2, Maldonado sensed an opportunity to claim ninth place and made a move around the outside of Turn 3, making slight contact with Grosjean in the process.

The damage done to his rear-wing upright would lead to his eventual retirement, and although Grosjean managed to claim eighth place, he experienced another heart-in-the-mouth moment during a pit stop, when he missed his marks and punted his front-jack man into mid-air. 

That incident came roughly 48 hours after his engine cover fell off his car on the main straight in FP2.

As well as engaging in on-track battles, members of the Lotus team were fighting away from the circuit.

After replacing Grosjean in a number of practice sessions, Palmer, per Autosport's Ian Parkes, rejected the Frenchman's suggestion that his FP1 appearances were hindering Lotus' pre-race preparations.

According to Finnish publication Turun Sanomat's Luis Vasconcelos (h/t Fox Sports), Grosjean was only benched after Maldonado "refused" deputy team principal Federico Gastaldi's request to allow Palmer drive his car, making it "clear to the team that his agreement gives him the right to drive in each session at every grand prix."

Lotus' switch to Mercedes power for 2015—as wrong as it seemed, given the team's historical links with Renault—made the team instantly competitive at high-speed circuits featuring long straights.

With the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve being the first venue of the season requiring a low-downforce setup, the team had an opportunity to make serious gains in the constructors' championship—and see how they measured against fellow Mercedes customers Williams and Force India—at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Grosjean's lap for fifth on the grid was just 0.18 seconds slower than third-placed Kimi Raikkonen, driving the race-winning Ferrari SF15-T, with Maldonado starting alongside his team-mate, reinforcing the E23's strength in Montreal.

The Venezuelan drove maturely in the race to claim seventh, his best finish since November 2012, and Grosjean—as you can see above—pushed to the limit at a track where drivers must use every inch of the road.

He pushed his luck a little too far, however, and collided with Will Stevens while lapping the Manor Marussia, dropping from fifth to 10th by the chequered flag.

It was an inexcusable error, but even Grosjean's clumsiness couldn't mar Lotus' most competitive display for some time and their first double points finish since India 2013.

Less than two months after their collision in Spain, the Lotus cars were again a little too close for comfort in the British Grand Prix.

The development of the E23 had stalled and the team underperformed in qualifying at Silverstone as both Grosjean and Maldonado failed to progress from Q2.

Mercedes power, and the threat of rain, would probably have allowed Lotus to sneak into the top 10 in the race. But their drivers were their own worst enemies, with Grosjean making contact with Ricciardo at Village and ricocheting into the path of his team-mate.

Their instant retirements left the team reflecting on nine DNFs in the opening nine races of 2015.

Silverstone also saw Lotus' financial problems become ever more worrying, with Autosport's Ian Parkes and Dieter Rencken reporting the team were "being faced with a winding-up petition in the High Court."

Grosjean and Maldonado's adventures, at a time Lotus were now clearly struggling, made their retirements all the more unforgivable.

Just three weeks following the news of their winding-up petition, Lotus hit a new low at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

As reported by Sky Sports' William Esler, Pirelli initially refused to provide the team with tyres due to a financial dispute, with the issue only resolved less than an hour before the start of free practice.

Lotus were forced to miss the first part of FP1 as they waited for the rubber to heat up. And when they finally took to the track, they performed relatively well.

Grosjean squeezed into the top-10 in qualifying and finished eighth in the race, keeping his head when many around him lost theirs.

Maldonado, unfortunately, was among those to lose his head, and after scoring points in two consecutive races in Canada and Austria, he was making a nuisance of himself yet again.

Over the course of the 69-lap race, he was handed three separate penalties: two of the drive-through variety—the first for hitting Perez, the second for speeding in the pit lane—and a 10-second time penalty for overtaking behind the safety car.

As if the team didn't have enough to worry about at that stage...

Grosjean clambered out of the cockpit and, with his arms in the air, charged into the sea of black and gold. They had experienced the most challenging, unrewarding 18 months, and their futures were increasingly uncertain.

But for one day only, they were back where they belonged.

Romain had been the undisputed star of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, qualifying fourth—but starting ninth after a grid penalty—and reeling in Vettel's Ferrari as the race entered its latter stages.

When the sporting gods took a pin to Seb's rear-right tyre, which exploded on the Kemmel Straight on the penultimate lap, Grosjean was elevated to the podium. Both the Frenchman and his colleagues were handed respite from another sticky situation.

Ahead of the Spa-Francorchamps race, Autosport's Dieter Rencken and Ian Parkes claimed the team were "embroiled in a legal battle" with former reserve driver Charles Pic—disgruntled with a lack of track time in 2014—which left Lotus at risk of their cars being impounded.

In the emotion of Grosjean's third-place finish, Permane lifted the lid on the team's struggles, telling Sky Sports' William Esler how 2015 was the "worst season we have had financially."

He explained the team were forced to use just three gearboxes in 2015—"most teams," he added, use "five or six"—and claimed the new front wing Lotus brought to Belgium was "about the only thing we have done" in terms of in-season development.

As rumours over Renault's potential takeover of the team persisted, Permane—a senior member when Team Enstone won two consecutive drivers' and constructors' titles in 2005 and '06—told the same source: "The team are incredibly excited about it. We would welcome them back with open arms obviously."

The momentum of Grosjean's podium finish soon faded when Lotus yet again retired on the first lap in Italy and finished outside of the points in Singapore.

And when they arrived at the Japanese Grand Prix, their situation had gone from hopeless to homeless.

As reported by Sky Sports' James Galloway, the team were locked out of their hospitality unit in the Suzuka paddock and would remain without a base for the entire weekend.

Lotus employees were "granted access" to the extravagant Paddock Club hospitality unit by F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone, who had recently given the team £1.5 million to pay the wages of their 400 members of staff, according to the Times' Kevin Eason.

Their fellow competitors, meanwhile, also "opened their doors to provide Lotus's mechanics with food and drink," with Grosjean tweeting an image of himself sheltering from the rain and Palmer finding a quiet corner to tuck into his Doritos.

Now well aware of their responsibilities to their colleagues, Grosjean and Maldonado recorded the team's second double points finish of 2015 in Japan, offering a little solace and a glimmer of hope.

The shirt was still black, he was still the centre of attention and he looked at ease, comfortable and, above all, happy.

But they were the only similarities.

As recently as August, Grosjean had appeared to reiterate his commitment to Lotus, telling ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson, for instance, of his excitement at the prospect of leading a full-blown works Renault team. 

There was, after all, something incredibly appealing about the idea of Grosjean re-establishing his relationship with the company that offered him his first chance in F1 and carrying it to success.

But just days after giving his team reason to believe at Suzuka, Romain was sat at the front of an auditorium in Kannapolis, North Carolina, confirmed as the first signing of the new Haas team, who would arrive on the grid in 2016.

Grosjean was, in many ways, the last remaining strand of DNA from Lotus' success across 2012 and 2013, but their favourite son had decided to leave home.

Grosjean's switch to Haas was all the more surprising given that it was announced just 24 hours after the first concrete step toward Renault's takeover of Lotus was announced.

After its relationships with Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso, whom it had supplied V6 turbo power units, went beyond the point of no return, Renault had been debating its long-term future in Formula One.

According to Autosport's Dieter Rencken and Lawrence Barretto, Renault was torn between remaining as an engine supplier, withdrawing from the sport entirely or purchasing an existing team before ultimately opting for the latter option.

Although Autosport's Ian Parkes reported a deal to buy a "majority stake" in Lotus was on the verge of completion in August, nothing official was announced, which almost certainly led to Grosjean's restlessness and his decision to gamble on a brand-new team to ensure his place on the 2016 grid.

The news, though, finally arrived when Renault Sport's official website confirmed the "signature of a Letter of Intent regarding the potential acquisition by Renault of a controlling stake in Lotus F1 Team Ltd."

It was the first step toward Renault's return, the first step toward salvation.

The first step toward being reborn.

All statistics used in this article, unless stated, have been taken from the official Formula One website and Wikipedia.

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