Lotus F1 team driver Romain Grosjean has said that he is confident of recovering from a poor start to the season at the Malaysian Grand Prix next weekend.

The 28-year-old was forced to retire at the end of lap one during the Australian Grand Prix, having qualified inside the top 10.

"Albert Park was quite a strong weekend in terms of getting on top of the car, finding strong pace and a good balance and demonstrating good potential," NBCSport quotes Grosjean as saying. "But it was a very brief in terms of race laps – or should I say a race lap?

"It was unfortunate that our race was very short because of quite a simple issue, but it's something everyone back at Enstone has been working on. I'm sure we'll have a much better race in Sepang.

"Our target for the early races is to be regularly in the top 10. We certainly demonstrated that in Albert Park and our race pace simulations were good so if we'd remained in the race we should have finished strongly. There's nothing to suggest this can't be the case in Malaysia and we really want to start scoring points."

Grosjean finished 14th in the drivers' standings last season.