On a day of tit-for-tat, Lotus' latest salvo has been to release a picture of their E22 just minutes after McLaren's official launch.

Perhaps in a mood after reportedly losing Boullier to McLaren, Lotus pipped McLaren's big day by announcing the departure of the Frenchman.

That was followed by a tweet asking fans if they were "already tired of the #McLarenMP429 launch" and urging them to stick with Lotus.


However, it didn't stop there.

Less than four minutes after McLaren unveiled their new car, Lotus released a picture of their's.

Feeling a bit put out are they?

The look of the nose of 2014's Formula 1 cars has already been a major talking point, but Lotus caused a fresh stir by releasing a rendering of its new E22, which features a very different philosophy.

The aggressive "twin tusk" arrangement caused problems for the team in completing crash testing. But this hurdle has been overcome and Lotus will be ready to go in time for the second pre-season test in Bahrain.

The rules mandating a single nose tip, to be mounted far lower than previously and with a minimum cross section, were introduced for safety reasons. The other cars that have so far been revealed have featured the "anteater" nose, which forms the nose tip with a finger-like extension.

Lotus's twin tusk arrangement eschews this philosophy and stretches the wording of the rules to the limit. In order to meet the single lower nose tip regulation, the two tusks are of unequal length, so the longer one forms the mandatory nose tip, while the other is short enough to avoid being considered part of the nose tip by the regulations.

This leaves each tusk to act as a crash structure, the front wing mounting pylon and then, as they slim narrow the rear of the car, also become turning vanes. This means the unavoidable obstruction of the mandatory nose tip is made into a multi-purpose device.

The design may present slightly more total cross sectional area to the airflow, but places the obstruction in the most beneficial location.

F1's governing body was "bombarded" with messages from rival teams after Lotus revealed the first photo of its highly-unique nose solution for 2014.

Under the 2014 regulations, the augmented energy recovery systems require a brake-by-wire system in order to stabilize the car under braking while energy is harvested.

Due to the complexity of relationship between the energy and braking systems, combined with the problems Lotus have had with their Renault power units during testing, Chester admitted that it would take the Enstone team a considerable amount of time to perform at an optimal level this year.

"With the chassis itself the level of grip isn't too bad, even though we've lost a little bit of downforce," Chester told crash.net.

"The biggest problems are how the chassis works with the power unit and how the energy recovery system works. So there are some inconsistencies there which are making it very difficult for the driver to predict what he is going to get when he arrives at the corner.

"So the system is not doing exactly the same thing every time and that is disturbing the driver and losing us a lot of time."

Chester added that he has had no confirmation from Renault either way with regards to how long it would take the French manufacturer to get its power units working with its associated systems on a consistent basis.

"There are no fixed timescales. They are working very hard on it. I'm sure when they gather all the information after [the final] test for what has happened with all the teams we'll get another update of what is happening for Melbourne," Chester added.