Saturday, 4 October 2014

Q&A with Lotus Trackside Operations Director Alan Permane following qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix

In Season Testing Spain
(Sam Bloxham for The Lotus F1 Team)

How was qualifying for the team?  

It didn’t go well for us. We saw good potential yesterday, however today we haven’t been able to get on top of the car and neither driver was 100% happy on their qualifying laps. Pastor will start from the back of the grid after his engine penalty so we have our work cut out.

All talk is of a wet race, what does that mean in terms of strategy? 

A wet race presents a number of challenges as there’s no such thing as a standard wet race. It’s either raining - where the track is getting wetter and the grip levels are decreasing - or if there’s no rain or very little rain, where a racing line can emerge and the grip levels improve. What is certain is that we have run numerous simulations and we will be closely monitoring the skies and the satellite information. Pirelli give us two wet tyres, the intermediate and the full wet so the timing of when to use either of these tyres is crucial to make up places and achieve a good result.

© Ben Johnston 2014

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