I know... All of you are right when you say "they know what they are doing" and last years car was fast, too.
but there are some things I don´t understand @ Lotus.
Last year they drove their "ears" through the year and never ever opened them to use the passive DRS.
Yes they maybe included the rollhoop in it but they should have designed it in a way where they could have used another engine cover without those ears.
they (for sure) added drag, wheight high up at the car and disrupted the airflow to the rear wing.
Maybe it wasn´t a big disadvantage but for sure it was.
and now... this year (well... maybe a clever idea with the nose).. WTF did they think about the exhaust and rear wing mount desgn??
If you look closely at the image you can see that the exhaust has those two curves to let it end asymetrically on the right side of the car.
And when I know one thing about Turbo engines then it´s that you want as small back pressure as possible.
this bend in the exhaust will definitelly add backpressure.
They could have easily made an attempt like RedBull to use a small wingmount AND use a straight exhaust.
Maybe the backpressure disadvantage is small. But also I think that an exhaust driven Monkey seat will be complicated to use asymmetrically under the rear wing.
I don´t get it why they don´t have the feeling for such simple and small things and the perfection in such areas and otherwise they have other genius ideas.