Lotus have made a premature exit from the second winter test in Barcelona after they picked up a problem with their new chassis.
The team ran an upgraded chassis from the first test in Jerez, but Romain Grosjean completed only seven laps on day one at the Circuit de Catalunya on Tuesday before he discovered that the E20-02 "wasn't responding as it should".
The Enstone squad called an immediate halt to the day's action with principal Eric Boullier calling it a "minor setback" and saying they would return to the track on Wednesday.
However, the team were forced to backtrack in the evening and Boullier confirmed that they would take no further part in the Barcelona test.
"Not running this week has been a tough decision to take, but we feel that our choice is the right one," said Boullier.
"On the positive side, we have quickly identified the issue with the chassis and our design office has already devised a solution. We will be present at next week's test in Barcelona.
"We draw faith from the fact that the E20 was quick out of the box in Jerez and showed its reliability there. We have a lot of work ahead of us over the next week but everyone at Enstone is ready for this challenge."
Technical director James Allison added: "Before we were due to fly chassis E20-01 out to Barcelona in replacement of chassis E20-02 - damaged this morning - we ran a series of simulations at the factory based on the data provided by our brief running on track today.
"As a result, we were able to identify an area which requires some additional work. It will be more productive for us to carry out these modifications to both chassis at Enstone rather than send E20-01 out to this week's test. We'll put the right measures in place and we will be able to fix the problem before next week."
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