News
14th August 2014, 14:10
After wins and podiums in 2012 and 2013, Lotus have struggled mightily this season, with reliability issues and a lack of pace leaving them battling just to break into the top ten.
But while progress might not be immediately apparent, technical director Nick Chester insists the team have made great strides with their understanding of what's required in Formula One racing's new era - and is adamant crucial lessons have been learnt for 2015...
Q: It has been a difficult start for Lotus in 2014, starting with pre-season when you missed the first test in Jerez. In hindsight, how much of a hindrance has that proved?
Nick Chester: I think it would have helped with some of the reliability problems. There were some things we found in the second and third tests that we might have found had we been present in the first. So we lost some time there, and that made things tricky. That has been caught up by now, but obviously you've lost some development time because you've been fighting other problems.
Q: You went into the Australian season opener almost treating it like a test. How much progress have you made since?
NC: Well, in all sorts of areas really. We were hurt at the start of the year because of the car being late - plus we had pretty poor reliability, so in Melbourne we were in pretty bad shape. Over the first four races to Barcelona we then improved very heavily, in quite a few areas really. Not really just on the chassis side but also the power unit - the mapping got a lot better and we had quite a lot more power by Barcelona, where the car was performing pretty well. We haven't been happy with where we have been in the races that followed. In Monaco we expected the car to perform quite well and it didn't - we struggled with some of the low-speed corners - and then at places like Montreal and Spielberg, we struggled with the power-sensitivity of those tracks.
Q: So are your performances - your struggles - tied entirely to problems with the power unit?
NC: I suppose not entirely, but much more so than it used to be: with the old V8s everybody had engines that were pretty similar, maybe within 20bhp. It is a lot bigger than that now - you can tell that from looking at the results. Probably this year it is more of a power unit formula than aero, when in the past it has always been aero by some margin. It has turned it around quite a lot. From the top to the bottom of the grid that deficit is probably more aero than it is power unit, but in the middle of the grid the power unit is making quite a big difference.
Q: Just how problematic was it adapting to this year's regulations? For example, cooling has been of paramount importance, but it often comes with an aerodynamic cost
More... (http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews/2014/8/16205.html)
But while progress might not be immediately apparent, technical director Nick Chester insists the team have made great strides with their understanding of what's required in Formula One racing's new era - and is adamant crucial lessons have been learnt for 2015...
Q: It has been a difficult start for Lotus in 2014, starting with pre-season when you missed the first test in Jerez. In hindsight, how much of a hindrance has that proved?
Nick Chester: I think it would have helped with some of the reliability problems. There were some things we found in the second and third tests that we might have found had we been present in the first. So we lost some time there, and that made things tricky. That has been caught up by now, but obviously you've lost some development time because you've been fighting other problems.
Q: You went into the Australian season opener almost treating it like a test. How much progress have you made since?
NC: Well, in all sorts of areas really. We were hurt at the start of the year because of the car being late - plus we had pretty poor reliability, so in Melbourne we were in pretty bad shape. Over the first four races to Barcelona we then improved very heavily, in quite a few areas really. Not really just on the chassis side but also the power unit - the mapping got a lot better and we had quite a lot more power by Barcelona, where the car was performing pretty well. We haven't been happy with where we have been in the races that followed. In Monaco we expected the car to perform quite well and it didn't - we struggled with some of the low-speed corners - and then at places like Montreal and Spielberg, we struggled with the power-sensitivity of those tracks.
Q: So are your performances - your struggles - tied entirely to problems with the power unit?
NC: I suppose not entirely, but much more so than it used to be: with the old V8s everybody had engines that were pretty similar, maybe within 20bhp. It is a lot bigger than that now - you can tell that from looking at the results. Probably this year it is more of a power unit formula than aero, when in the past it has always been aero by some margin. It has turned it around quite a lot. From the top to the bottom of the grid that deficit is probably more aero than it is power unit, but in the middle of the grid the power unit is making quite a big difference.
Q: Just how problematic was it adapting to this year's regulations? For example, cooling has been of paramount importance, but it often comes with an aerodynamic cost
More... (http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews/2014/8/16205.html)