Saturday 18 April 2015

Q&A with Lotus F1 Team Trackside Operations Director Alan Permane

(Lotus F1 Team)

How was qualifying for the team?

Romain did a great job through qualifying after we struggled to get his car working for him earlier in the weekend. His pace through Q1 and Q2 was such that we considered a riskier qualifying strategy. He didn’t quite get the optimal Q3 lap but P10 on the grid certainly isn’t the end of the world as there’s good potential. Pastor, in contrast, had a really strong weekend until qualifying when something that we are still investigating caused the front brake system to retain pressure without any pedal input, causing a considerable loss of straightline speed.
 
What are the considerations for tomorrow’s race?

Tyre performance looks to be reasonably predictable however it’s the brakes where we’ll be paying a lot of attention and monitoring during the course of the race as they generate a lot of heat thanks to the circuit layout here. With Romain we’re looking to move up the top ten as much as possible, whilst with Pastor we have the opportunity to make strong progress through the field as his race pace should be superior to that of quite a few cars ahead of him. It will be two very different challenges, with good opportunities for both drivers to score well.

© Ben Johnston 2015





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