The first round of aero upgrades introduced at the Spanish GP moved Lotus Racing slightly closer to the tail of the midfield pack, and another update for the T127 will be on board for the British GP in July, but the team is already focusing the bulk of its resources on next year’s car, according to tech chief Mike Gascoyne.

“We still have stuff coming through and there will probably be a package for Silverstone, but now we are very much concentrating on 2011,” Gascoyne told Autosport. “Next year, with the big rule changes, it levels the playing field and we need to put our resources into that. So we want to keep pushing, but we want to look at next year as well.”

With its entry only confirmed six months before the start of this season, Gascoyne admits that Lotus had to focus on just getting the car to Bahrain rather than pushing it to the design limit. And while the T127 has room for improvement, the well travelled Brit reckons that resources will be better spent on 2011 because there’s little hope of overtaking any team in the table.

“We want to get 10th (in the Constructors’ Championship) and realistically, even if we made the car better, would we get ninth or eighth? Probably not. Therefore is it worth putting resources into that, or switching them to next year? There is also the commercial aspect you want to be seen moving forward this year, but we want to take some people by surprise next year.”

He however assured that work on the current car won’t be shelved. “We are still testing in the wind tunnel and there are bits in production that are coming through, so we are not stopping now. We are also taking weight out of the car. We don’t have carbon suspension on the car, that will be coming through for Silverstone, and that will obviously carry over to next year. We are pretty happy with where we are.”