(Lotus F1 Team)
What are the primary performance
considerations for the Shanghai International
Circuit?
It’s an interesting venue. The circuit has a
mix of sectors: a very long straight in the final
sector and some high speed corners in the
second sector. It’s a balance between setting
the downforce level so that you can be fast
through the turns without compromising your
pace on the huge back straight. It is a technical
track for the drivers and hard work physically
for them, particularly in turn one as it is is very
fast before it tightens up in turns two and three.
What upgrades are planned for Shanghai?
We have bodywork upgrades at the front and
rear of the car. In combination, we have a
reasonable upgrade package for Shanghai
which mainly focusses on improving our
downforce.
It could be quite a relatively chilly weekend –
does this hold any fears?
The range of ambient temperatures can vary
significantly in Shanghai from around 10 to
30 degrees Celsius so that’s quite significant.
We can’t know for sure in advance what the
weather will be like but yes it will certainly
be cooler than the last race! We will put
emphasis towards generating the right tyre
temperatures. And we’ll certainly pack our
fleeces.
Jolyon Palmer will drive in FP1 – what type of
to-do list will he have for that session?
It will be good to have Jolyon out in action in
FP1. His to-do list will be the same as the race
drivers’, so aero evaluation work, some set-up
runs and then longer runs towards the end
of the session. It will help with our weekend
preparations as we always look at FP1 as being
the development session.
How would you evaluate the E23 Hybrid’s
performance in Malaysia?
We were quite pleased with the pace of the
E23 in Malaysia. The car ran well on the Friday
with Romain being well up on the timesheets
and our qualifying performance was pretty
reasonable on Saturday. Looking at the tyre
performance, I think that it was tricky for
everybody in Kuala Lumpur: we had never seen
track temperatures that high as they were over
60°C! This meant that it was difficult to keep
the tyre surface temperatures under control
however we did a reasonable job of this. In the
race, balance and the handling of the car were
promising and already a step forward from the
first race of the season. We were compromised
by traffic but that’s the nature of racing as
it’s seldom you have a clear track in front of
you. The E23 coped well in the extreme heat
and it was the first time that it ran in the wet.
Again, the handling was pretty decent in those
conditions so we continue to see the potential
of this package.
It wasn’t perfect running in Sepang, what’s
been done to put the early-season niggles to
bed?
Pastor had a puncture right at the start of
the race after contact with Valtteri Bottas
and then later an issue with his brakes. We
are still thoroughly investigating the matter
and a solution will be in place by the time the
car runs in FP1 in China. There was also a
quite minor issue with Romain’s car which
unfortunately affected the power unit. It
was a small bit of sensor mis-information
which meant Romain wasn’t getting absolute
maximum power. Not a big issue, but it was
something which meant Romain had to fight a
little harder for his overtaking moves.
Does a win from a team other than Mercedes
give faith to all the other teams that they can
be beaten again?
It’s a long season ahead and we’re all trying
to do exactly that. We’ve seen in this year that
Ferrari have improved significantly over the
winter months and it seemed that the hot
track in Sepang suited them well. They had an
improving car, a good strategy and they put it
all together to take the win. It shows that with
enough development Mercedes can indeed
be beaten which is good for the sport. Rest
assured, we’re doing everything we can at
Lotus F1 Team to challenge Mercedes, Ferrari
and every other team as best we can over the
course of the year.
© Ben Johnston 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment