Fundamentally, the E22 IMO is a good car, a very good car in fact. You just needed to have watched it in testing on the rare occasions wasn't on fire or shuddering to a halt. It looked to easily have one of the best handling balances on track. Also apparently it's one of the few cars that is (Slightly) under the weight limit allowing them to move ballast around to get that. Reckon when Renault sort their issues and Lotus have a better understanding of how the package works, it'll be surprisingly quick.
Of course the others will have moved on too in performance by then, so it might not be podium material too often...