Despite team orders being effectively legal in F1, team boss Eric
Boullier confirmed that Lotus does not follow that policy. He told the Mirror, “We don’t want to play team orders, so we let them race normally and what happened, happened.” The most important thing, according to Spanish commentator and
former veteran F1 engineer Joan Villadelprat, is that the former Renault team still know how to challenge for wins. “Maybe they don’t have the best car on the grid, because McLaren
and Red Bull and Mercedes are probably better, but Lotus have made a car capable of competing with the best in the right circumstances,” he wrote in El Pais newspaper.