(© Ben Johnston 2015)
The Lotus F1 Team have seen a complete turnaround in their
on track performances since the end of last season after making the switch to
Mercedes power units.
The Enstone outfit had a fantastic qualifying session in
Australia last weekend and go into the next race in Malaysia confident of
scoring points. Speaking in a Q and A before the race Lotus F1 Team Technical
Director Nick Chester was asked:
What are the particular challenges of
Malaysia?
It is hot and humid and there is a good
chance of a heavy downpour, particularly late
in afternoon, meaning it can be at the end
of qualifying or halfway through the race.
Traditionally the drivers have always liked
the layout of the circuit. It has a good mix of
corners – hairpins onto long straights and
then in the middle part of the track, there are
high speed sweeping turns. Sepang has an
interesting layout and we shall look forward
to racing there again this year.
What’s your review of the Australian Grand
Prix?
The build of the car went fairly smoothly at
the beginning of the weekend getting both
chassis ready for Friday’s practice sessions.
The performance of the car was pretty good
from the onset: the drivers were happy, the
car was good to drive and we were able to
work the tyres quite well. Into Saturday,
the performance was definitely there as
we got both cars into Q3. The race was
disappointing as without retirements both
drivers would have scored a good chunk of
points.
What are your initial thoughts of the
relative performance of the car?
We are reasonably happy. We look like we
could be regular Q3 contenders but there
is more that we want to be doing such as
closing the gap to Williams and moving away
more from the group behind us. There is
more to do!
What were the technical issues
experienced over the weekend and can
they be rectified?
There was a problem with the charge air
system where a leak developed and this
happened to both cars on Friday. With a
bit of work and a few changes we had the
initial problem fixed, however unfortunately
we saw something similar on Sunday on
Romain’s car. We had done over 4,000kms in
winter testing and that issue hadn’t occurred
so it is a bit strange that it happened
now. When you are at the track it can be
challenging to solve such an issue rapidly
nonetheless we are now rectifying the issue
at the factory. We have a couple of different
approaches and we’re doing extensive
testing to ensure we have a robust solution.
How much work was required to Pastor’s
car after the impact?
The left hand side suspension, the floor and
the front wing were damaged so quite a
reasonable amount of work was required but
it will be ready for the first practice session
in Malaysia.
What could have been possible in the race
in Melbourne?
If we didn’t experience the unfortunate crash
and the charge air system leak, we could
probably have been looking at fifth and sixth
positions. Both drivers had qualified ahead
of Felipe Nasr who ended the race fifth and
our long run performance on Friday looked
good so there is no reason why our drivers
could not have achieved that.
How much is there yet to come from the
E23?
A fair bit I’d say. It’s a brand new car and
there is quite a lot of aero development work
to do; we will be pushing developments all
through the year for it. We are happy as
we have a good platform to work from. The
drivers enjoy driving the E23; they find it is
a consistent car they are able to push to the
limit quite well. It’s great to have this basis
to work from as it means that we can focus
on adding performance.
© Ben Johnston 2015
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