The E22 featured a distinctive asymmetrical "tusk" nosecone: a shorter tusk on the left side and a longer tusk on the right, a solution the team adopted in response to the FIA's new nose regulations for 2014 that outlawed the tall step-noses of the previous seasons. The car's technical staff included Nick Chester as Technical Director, Chris Cooney as Chief Engineer, Martin Tolliday as Chief Designer, and Nicolas Hennel as Head of Aerodynamics. The chassis weighed 692 kg and was paired with an eight-speed semi-automatic gearbox with a titanium construction. The predecessor car was the 2013 Lotus E21, and the successor was the Lotus E23 Hybrid.
Lotus was forced to miss the first pre-season test at Jerez in January 2014, making a late public reveal of the car through computer-rendered images that showed the forked nose arrangement before the physical car was completed. The team debuted the E22 at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
Results in the opening races were uncompetitive. As the calendar moved to European circuits, Grosjean managed to qualify fifth and finish eighth at the Spanish Grand Prix, which represented the most competitive showing either driver managed across the season. Three points-scoring finishes were recorded across the year: Grosjean at Monaco and Maldonado at the United States Grand Prix, while a third points finish also came before the season ended.
At the United States Grand Prix weekend the team ran an alternative nose design in free practice sessions that more closely resembled what would become the Lotus E23. However, it was not raced and the experiment served primarily as a data-gathering exercise ahead of 2015 development.
Development of the E22 was curtailed relatively early in the second half of the season. The team redirected its engineering resources toward the E23 after further work on the E22 failed to produce a meaningful performance improvement. The team publicly acknowledged a fundamental design flaw in the chassis as a primary cause of the season's poor results.
Lotus finished eighth in the Constructors' Championship at the end of 2014, a significant drop from fourth place in 2013. The team scored no podiums in 2014, marking the first season without a podium finish since 2002, when the organisation had been competing as Renault F1. Across 19 races the car scored no wins, no poles, and no podiums. The E22 was the last Lotus car produced at Enstone to use Renault power before the team switched to Mercedes engines for the 2015 season.
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