Lotus Cosworth T125

[beelsebob]

Okay, it's not quite an F1 car, but it's very close, and I thought a technical topic on it might be interesting.

We know for certain that it's a cosworth V8 F1 engine, but limited to 12k rpm to preserve it's life.

A lot of the car also seems to be designed with preserving the life of the car in mind – there's a pretty damn big air box, which I'm guessing is to make sure a decent amount of air gets to it to cool it.

The Top Gear report implied that it had more DF than a current F1 car, which doesn't surprise me – it gets to evade rules about where aero gets to go. Did anyone get any good shots of things like what it's diffuser looks like?

[William]

Hi , I've been following this forum forever and just decided to register.

Hope this will do , these were taken with my phone but they're ok.
As you can see the diffuser is quite big.

[ajdavison2]

They're more sort of venturi tunnels, rather than a diffuser I think? and I've read quite a abit on this car, (I find it very hard to believe that it produces as much downforce as a modern F1 car). It's designed to primarily be user friendly, as Clarkson more or less showed, a man with possibly 0 experience of cars of this nature can get in and take it for a drive. I read that it has an onboard starter motor, more gradual torque and power curves so it doesn't have such a narrow window of peak performance; is designed with a very positive front end, and a rear that slides just a little bit. Peak engine power I think is 640bhp.

[beelsebob]

They're more sort of venturi tunnels, rather than a diffuser I think? and I've read quite a abit on this car, (I find it very hard to believe that it produces as much downforce as a modern F1 car). It's designed to primarily be user friendly, as Clarkson more or less showed, a man with possibly 0 experience of cars of this nature can get in and take it for a drive. I read that it has an onboard starter motor, more gradual torque and power curves so it doesn't have such a narrow window of peak performance; is designed with a very positive front end, and a rear that slides just a little bit. Peak engine power I think is 640bhp.

I'm not at all surprised by the "more downforce than a current F1 car" claim – if you're allowed to do crazy things like make the diffuser enormous then you can do much much better than an F1 car pretty rapidly.

[ajdavison2]

True, and that bit is just my opinion, but the lack of flow conditioners, simplicity of the front wing, got to admit i'm just guessing on that part haha

[ESPImperium]

They're more sort of venturi tunnels, rather than a diffuser I think? and I've read quite a abit on this car, (I find it very hard to believe that it produces as much downforce as a modern F1 car). It's designed to primarily be user friendly, as Clarkson more or less showed, a man with possibly 0 experience of cars of this nature can get in and take it for a drive. I read that it has an onboard starter motor, more gradual torque and power curves so it doesn't have such a narrow window of peak performance; is designed with a very positive front end, and a rear that slides just a little bit. Peak engine power I think is 640bhp.

I'm not at all surprised by the "more downforce than a current F1 car" claim – if you're allowed to do crazy things like make the diffuser enormous then you can do much much better than an F1 car pretty rapidly.

I think it has more downforce than at least 2 of the current cars of the class of 2011 and same as what one of the class of 2011 has, and possibly more than 3 of the class of 2010. I think Alesi was talking about the Team Lotus, Hispania and Virgin cars, anything above them will have more downforce.

[ajdavison2]

Another thing that confused me, in the episode, it was branded with the LRGP livery? I thought team lotus was the lotus that owned the lotus road car division.. I'm even confusing myself.. help

[tathan]

I have no problem believing it has scoops of downforce - remember F1 cars could have loads more if they sacrificed drag. This will probably be built to maximize downforce with a reasonably high cd because of who it's aimed at. Grip and stability more important than 5mph top end.

It won't need a flat bottom either, the diffuser looks massive and it probably gets a whole heap from the underneath.

[beelsebob]

Another thing that confused me, in the episode, it was branded with the LRGP livery? I thought team lotus was the lotus that owned the lotus road car division.. I'm even confusing myself.. help

Nope, Lotus road cars are owned by Proton who are heavy investors in the Renault F1 team. Team Lotus is run by Tony Fernandez, and has no association with Lotus cars at all.

[hecti]

It won't need a flat bottom either, the diffuser looks massive and it probably gets a whole heap from the underneath.

On top gear Jean alessi said the floor produced 60% of the total down force!!

[beelsebob]

It won't need a flat bottom either, the diffuser looks massive and it probably gets a whole heap from the underneath.

On top gear Jean alessi said the floor produced 60% of the total down force!!

I *think* what he was getting at was that a 1990s F1 car, not having a raised nose, did not have a splitter, which meant that air was inefficiently split, that meant that it couldn't be lead neatly round the side pods, that meant that it couldn't be driven into the rear wings, so the splitter itself isn't producing 60% of the downforce... but without it, you would lose that much.

[Steven]

At its original launch, it was reported the engine would be limited to 10,500 rpm. The official note also mentioned the engine as being a 3.5L Cosworth GPV8 producing 650bhp.

[horse]

This was Danny Behr's original middle finger gesture to Team Lotus and Tony Fernandes. My understanding was that it was designed and built with no input from the then Lotus F1 team. I doubt Renault were involved with its design either. They must have got a designer with single seater experience from somewhere to do it. I can't imagine it's fresh of the page brand new out of Norfolk.

It's a real gamble for Danny Behr as well because this is the start of the "Ferrari-isation" of Lotus. This is their FXX and if it's rubbish it will be a bad start for them. And I don't just mean the car itself, but the overall experience the punters are paying for.

I have also wondered whether Behr was using this as a test to see if Lotus could go into F1 on its own or not?

Looking at the thing, I would say this generates less DF than an F1 car even with the whopping diffuser on the back of it. Just look at the surface area of the front wing, it's not any bigger than an F1 wing, nor does it look very well developed. If the front wing is not so powerful then the rear will not be God's vacuum either.

[RacingManiac]

Seems crazy to put carbon suspension on a car like this....novice breaks car all the time, its just going to be really expensive to fix....

[chepoi]

Hi , I've been following this forum forever and just decided to register.

Hope this will do , these were taken with my phone but they're ok.
As you can see the diffuser is quite big.

This is A1 racing car.