Lotus E21 Renault

[ajdavison2]

Anyone else thinking that it looks pretty damn good haha?

[stefan_]

Rexooooooooona

I almost spilled coffee on my screen when I saw that logo
The guys from Lotus might not have the best car, but they sure have a great sense of humour.

[dren]

I am wondering how come lotus suddenly decides to enlong it. If the cars performance can be bettered by such a big increase in wheelbase, how did they missed that then when designing the car?

I read it is testing for the 2014 chassis layout.

[Blackout]

Chester says: "Well, we've wanted to do it because we've seen there's a performance gain associated with it. The way we're going to do it is with a front suspension change.
...
If anything, it should make the car a little bit more stable, a little bit easier to drive, it could even give us a small tyre management advantage so we think it's the right thing to do and we're looking forward to bringing it to Monza."
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 06#p449406

And Boullier says http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/109525

Can't find the ITW where he talks about 2014

[stefan_]

Italy 2013 - Thursday (05.09.2013)









via AMuS

[Thunder]

Top View of the Lotus.

On top is Raikkonen with the longer Wheelbase, below is Grosjean.

[stefan_]

Rear wing is interesting too.


via Craig Scarborough

[Thunder]

Thats tiny.

[astracrazy]

that's smaller than the merc!

[anzx]

Lotus has changed more than just the wheelbase... I'm sure

[Richard]

I see they've dropped the DRD for Monza.

It reminds me of the McLaren F-duct dilemma, but at least the f-duct had human input so there was no danger of switching it on around the fast bends. I suspect the DRD would hard to tune at Monza because it is relatively fast everywhere, I guess the system is best when there is a slow infield where DRD is obviously off and then fast straights where DRD is obviously on?

[Donuts]

I see they've dropped the DRD for Monza.

It reminds me of the McLaren F-duct dilemma, but at least the f-duct had human input so there was no danger of switching it on around the fast bends. I suspect the DRD would hard to tune at Monza because it is relatively fast everywhere, I guess the system is best when there is a slow infield where DRD is obviously off and then fast straights where DRD is obviously on?

I don't think they have "dropped" it, they were never planning to run it at Monza. Read interview with Alan Permaine on Lotus F1 website.

[wrcsti]

I see they've dropped the DRD for Monza.

It reminds me of the McLaren F-duct dilemma, but at least the f-duct had human input so there was no danger of switching it on around the fast bends. I suspect the DRD would hard to tune at Monza because it is relatively fast everywhere, I guess the system is best when there is a slow infield where DRD is obviously off and then fast straights where DRD is obviously on?

But did at Monza would allow them to run a bit more wing for turns. Its not as if this system will cancel every ounce of df from the rest of the car. If anything it seems less effective than the fduct

[turbof1]

-The wheelbase doesn't look like to be 10cm longer. They did change the front suspension though and the nose seems to a bit longer.

-The Monza rear wing has an interesting concept. Apperently they want to generate almost all rear wing downforce with the DRS flap. It does look like it will stall on higher speeds (and when DRS isn't activated), but if that doesn't bring problems in the parabolica then that's a plus.

-The absence of DRD might be due the pipework and such create drag. And when DRS is used, there is almost nothing left to stall.

[stefan_]

Italy 2013 - Friday (06.09.2013)