Lotus E20 Renault

[imightbewrong]

Is it me or this thing similar to Mercedes channel* is new ?

*That carbon thing containing the DDRS channels in the W03 http://www10.pic-upload.de/05.10.12/ghp3pexceqc.jpg

Did'nt notice it on the E20 before

That picture is of the W03

[PhillipM]

As I said a while back, if they're not going to run the device to get testing data on it at least, they should just bin it and focus elsewhere, all it's doing is distracting them every friday for something they'll never run

[MarkedOne8]

They can't spend more testing time with Kimi for that Device.They should focus on Kimi's setuping on fridays and test the Device on Grosjean's car.Completely mess.

[adam2003]

Its a waste of time its banned for next year and they keep delaying it hardly any races left now with long straights

[Dragonfly]

I think Mercedes DDRS is banned for next year. Not the locally called here V-duct. Which does not mean it won't be banned if implemented during a race event.

[mith]

I wonder, why they didn't put it on the second car, while Romain had penalty. It was 99,99% sure that D'Ambrosio won't score, but at least he cuold have been used as a test mule with quite some milage, he would be able to put for the device during the race.

[Forza]

[raymondu999]

did'nt risk running their new upgrades (which in fact worked since they used them this weekend).

They didn't. It didn't work.

[Donuts]

did'nt risk running their new upgrades (which in fact worked since they used them this weekend).

They didn't. It didn't work.

I'm 90% sure I read that they used the upgrades from Singapore, but I can't find the... wait I found it.

http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... /1009.html

I take it as saturday means both Q3 and qualifying, hence the race.

[raymondu999]

did'nt risk running their new upgrades (which in fact worked since they used them this weekend).

They didn't. It didn't work.

I'm 90% sure I read that they used the upgrades from Singapore, but I can't find the... wait I found it.

http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... /1009.html

I take it as saturday means both Q3 and qualifying, hence the race.

F1.com is sometimes inaccurate. It happens.

Here: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/ ... 13872.html
I've extracted and highlighted the relevant parts:

We ran updated front wings on both cars today. In the morning we ran the DDRS Device on Kimi’s car and an updated rear wing on Romain’s. In the afternoon, both cars used non DDRS rear wings. The Singapore-spec floor was evaluated on both cars. Pirelli’s hard compound tyre was used in the morning, the hard and soft in the afternoon.

We were not able to get ‘The Device’ functioning at a sufficient level for it to be used over the rest of the weekend. We made good progress dialling in the new floor as well as both the front and rear wings, which will all remain on the car for the rest of the weekend.

We suffered a disrupted day with Kimi’s car but despite that we’ve achieved a reasonable amount. We evaluated ‘The Device’ in the morning but were unable to make it switch effectively so we won’t be using it for the rest of the weekend. Romain suffered from understeer in the morning and by the time we had put this right he had already used up the best performance from his tyres. In the afternoon, with a better set up, he showed that there’s still a reasonable turn of speed in the E20. We look in OK shape on both the hard and soft rubber as well as on high fuel, and we feel there is more to come from the car tomorrow ahead of Qualifying.

[Donuts]

did'nt risk running their new upgrades (which in fact worked since they used them this weekend).

They didn't. It didn't work.

I'm 90% sure I read that they used the upgrades from Singapore, but I can't find the... wait I found it.

http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... /1009.html

I take it as saturday means both Q3 and qualifying, hence the race.

F1.com is sometimes inaccurate. It happens.

Here: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/ ... 13872.html
I've extracted and highlighted the relevant parts:

We ran updated front wings on both cars today. In the morning we ran the DDRS Device on Kimi’s car and an updated rear wing on Romain’s. In the afternoon, both cars used non DDRS rear wings. The Singapore-spec floor was evaluated on both cars. Pirelli’s hard compound tyre was used in the morning, the hard and soft in the afternoon.

We were not able to get ‘The Device’ functioning at a sufficient level for it to be used over the rest of the weekend. We made good progress dialling in the new floor as well as both the front and rear wings, which will all remain on the car for the rest of the weekend.

We suffered a disrupted day with Kimi’s car but despite that we’ve achieved a reasonable amount. We evaluated ‘The Device’ in the morning but were unable to make it switch effectively so we won’t be using it for the rest of the weekend. Romain suffered from understeer in the morning and by the time we had put this right he had already used up the best performance from his tyres. In the afternoon, with a better set up, he showed that there’s still a reasonable turn of speed in the E20. We look in OK shape on both the hard and soft rubber as well as on high fuel, and we feel there is more to come from the car tomorrow ahead of Qualifying.

I might not have been that clear, but I wrote "their new updates"... I did'nt refer to DDRS since it was introduced in... Spa or even earlier I think.... I'm well aware of the DDRS dial-in issues... at least from what I´ve read.

Conclusion: The back wing and floor worked.

[raymondu999]

Ah so you were just referring to other more basic upgrades? My bad. You were talking about DDRS all the way through, so it read as if you were talking about them not racing the DDRS

[Donuts]

Ah so you were just referring to other more basic upgrades? My bad. You were talking about DDRS all the way through, so it read as if you were talking about them not racing the DDRS

I'm sorry (writing to fast and not to accurate), my point was that they do put a lot of other stuff on the car and it works. It's hard to say from these four races (which I tried to explain in my earlier post) if they are really behind in development. Ofcourse Red Bull seems to have taken a big step, but I think Kimi Raikkonen could for instance have challenged Kobayashis third place in qualifying or let's say kept Hamilton at bay in the race, what would we have said then?

[noname]

I'm sorry (writing to fast and not to accurate), my point was that they do put a lot of other stuff on the car and it works. It's hard to say from these four races (which I tried to explain in my earlier post) if they are really behind in development. Ofcourse Red Bull seems to have taken a big step, but I think Kimi Raikkonen could for instance have challenged Kobayashis third place in qualifying or let's say kept Hamilton at bay in the race, what would we have said then?

Earlier in the season they were able to fight for victory, in the last few races their race pace was not that good (and Lotus openly admits that). They started season with pretty good car, they just could not keep the pace of development of the ones like McLaren or RBR.

It's highly probable better qualifying could move them up few places, but it can not hide the fact they are not as fast (compared with current front runners) as they used to be.

However I think they deserve respect for consistency presented this season. When we look at where they are now, and where they were last year it's quite clear (at least for me) they've sorted out their problems, and they seem to be well positioned to make another step forward in 2013.
And with the rules rather stable, before big reshuffle in 2014, E20 presents itself as well thought machine with significant potential for further development.

[MarkedOne8]

One thing is tweaking car parts.The completely other thing is introducing completely new parts.What I want to say that some tweaking on the endplates on the front wing (for example) should not be considered as a big upgrade.In Lotus case, in my opinion, the big upgrades were pelican nose, heavy front wing update for Valencia I think, many versions of floors can be considered as one big upgrade.

Their Device should be considered as a heavy upgrade once they make it work.But I am asking my self: "Why they don't just implement something like Mercedes DDRS or now Red Bulls DRS?".
These systems will be banned next year, but they are almost free.You don't have to study them or make additional research.You just have to make rear wing with holes and tunnels in endplates and make them blow something like beam wing.

Maybe we are spoiled.Kimi is doing better than expected this year.So, maybe we are expecting little bit too much.This team should be easily stable at third in WCC if Grosjean scored at least 3-4 points in every race when he crashed.