He’s managed to keep his helmet from a previous event for a change!

This was nothing more than an honest mistake. It’s not like Lotus faked the problem for the sake of some unknowable benefit.

Button is right, there are no excuses now. Remember how Villeneuve’s career faded with bad cars, or how Hakkinen’s suddenly exploded when he had a good one? Today’s drivers of that calibre will not have that to hide behind and I expect them to make the most of what they’re given. Should be a good fight.

Besides, there are twenty-three days until the Australian Grand Prix. Given the time differences between Europe and Australia, the teams would want to arrive well in advance to thwart jetlag, and with it being the first race of the season, that means there are a lot of media commitments to see to. So they would probably arrive the Monday before the race – which means that there are seventeen days in which to arrange and run the test. But then there’s still another four-day group test before Melbourne, which means there are just thirteen viable testing days. If Lotus, HRT and/or Marussia wanted to do a private test, they would need to find an acceptable circuit and book it, and then arrange for transportation and accomodation for the entire team, and all on incredibly short notice. It would get very expensive, very quickly. HRT and Marussia probably wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Lotus have developed a problem through no fault of their own

Even if it is a manufacturing fault, it was still their own fault. The cars go through endless quality checks to make sure that parts that aren’t entirely to spec go straight in the trash.
Its their car, so its their fault that it can’t take the stress. Whether it is a design fault or a manufacturing fault don’t make much of a difference.