Romain Grosjean had reason to celebrate after securing Lotus their first points of the season with a seventh-placed finish at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai on Sunday.

It was the Enstone-based team’s first points finish since November 2014 when Pastor Maldonado was ninth in the USA Grand Prix.

However, it was a day to forget for the Venezuelan who suffered from braking issues and was hit from behind from Jenson Button, eventually retiring with seven laps to go of a race won by Lewis Hamilton.

“It’s the best we could do and it’s satisfying to have achieved the team’s first points of the season,”

said Grosjean.

“I’m proud of everyone at Enstone and at the track. It wasn’t an easy circuit for us, with a lot of front limited corners that we don’t particularly like, but we had a strong start, and most of the stints were good too.

“We’ve made a good job improving the car race after race and it’s great to finally score points.

“The next race (Bahrain this weekend) could be promising too.”

Maldonado said: “I made a great start and we were running strongly early on. However, later I had a braking issue which made it harder to battle.

“We also have to understand why the brakes locked-up so easily coming into the pits.

“We lost a lot of time here and it compromised the rest of my race.

“It was a fantastic battle with Jenson and we were passing each other very cleanly; a good, fun, exciting battle.

“Unfortunately, it looks like he got his braking point wrong and went into the back of me.

“This can easily happen when you’re fighting for position, braking off-line and using DRS, so it’s just one of those things.

“Certainly our race pace is good, if we qualify a little higher we should be set for a good time in Bahrain.”

Alex Dew raced to an impressive podium finish after securing third place on the opening round of the BMW Compact Cup at Donington Park.

After a difficult qualifying session the Bampton driver managed to qualify seventh out of 45 cars for the opening race.

He made up four places during the race on the way to collecting his first trophy of the season.

Dew said: “It’s a great feeling to be back on the podium and pushing for the wins.” The LED Lenser-backed racer completed a good weekend by finishing seventh in the second race, after being hampered with an electrical gremlin.

Dew is back in action on April 26, when the series continues at Brands Hatch in Kent.

Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 racer Sean Walkinshaw enjoyed a strong Blancpain Endurance Series debut at ultra-fast Monza in Italy over the weekend.

The Chipping Norton-based driver took a top-eight finish in the headline Pro Cup category with teammates Craig Dolby and Martin Plowman.

“It’s been a little bit frustrating this weekend as I think we had the pace to be on the podium, but I’m still happy to get a good finish”, said Walkinshaw, who is next in action at Brands Hatch in May in the Sprint Series