Lotus F1 Team 2014

[ecapox]

2 seconds per lap improvement, according to Lopez - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113596

Have we ever seen this large of an improvement over two race weekends, let alone an entire season?

Id wage a guess that it is wishful thinking, but ill withhold final judgement until FP3.

[Holm86]

2 seconds per lap improvement, according to Lopez - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113596

Have we ever seen this large of an improvement over two race weekends, let alone an entire season?

Id wage a guess that it is wishful thinking, but ill withhold final judgement until FP3.

80% of this is probably due to Renault's engines underperforming so much at the beginning of the season. 2 sec's for a Renault powered team seams plausible to me.

[Blackout]

Anyway, Lotus made a huge step in China. The E22 has never been as close to the best cars in the 'aerodynamic' sectors as in China. In Malaysia it wasnt very bad, it wasnt that bad in the fast turns but lost too much time in the braking and slow exits. It had a 0.7-0.8 second gap compared to the best in S2. But i China they had less than 0.1. So they improved braking, traction, set up and PU. Unfortunately the E22 was too slow in S3 and its long straight line.
And all the new aero updates worked, it seems, because they ran them in the race.

[korzeniow]

Does anyone heard about any new signing at Lotus? From recent interview with Boulier he took some engineers with him to McLaren

[RagingBullx]

And who is the blonde babe pit mechanic, saw her in the garage last couple of races? Defo does it for me!

[turbof1]

Maldonado might be doing his last season in F1. The new sport minister of Venezuela doesn't want to back any autosport related projects anymore:

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/maldo ... could-end/

[Cam]

The irony would be if he looses his money, he looses his drive only to go home and be arrested for fraud. I'm not saying he's guilty, but maybe all those 'loses of concentration' on track correlate?

Some are reporting Lotus may pickup a title sponsor that has backed out of McLaren. I like lotus. I hope they can get some backing that enables proper drivers in the seats and we can see keep seeing some out there designs.

[stefan_]

The irony would be if he looses his money, he looses his drive only to go home and be arrested for fraud. I'm not saying he's guilty, but maybe all those 'loses of concentration' on track correlate?

Some are reporting Lotus may pickup a title sponsor that has backed out of McLaren. I like lotus. I hope they can get some backing that enables proper drivers in the seats and we can see keep seeing some out there designs.

Maybe not Maldonado, he benefitted from the money but hasn't anything to do with the shady stuff going on there. On the other hand I am pretty sure that some key people from PDVSA would be in jail already if they didn't have political backing.

[mikeerfol]

Rumours about Lotus-Mercedes in 2015 http://adamcooperf1.com/2014/06/24/coul ... from-2015/

[Manoah2u]

The irony would be if he looses his money, he looses his drive only to go home and be arrested for fraud. I'm not saying he's guilty, but maybe all those 'loses of concentration' on track correlate?

Some are reporting Lotus may pickup a title sponsor that has backed out of McLaren. I like lotus. I hope they can get some backing that enables proper drivers in the seats and we can see keep seeing some out there designs.

Maybe not Maldonado, he benefitted from the money but hasn't anything to do with the shady stuff going on there. On the other hand I am pretty sure that some key people from PDVSA would be in jail already if they didn't have political backing.

make no mistake, Maldonado was very good friends with Hugo Chavez. That alone tells you enough.
there are various images and videos around showing his friendship with Chavez wasn't just a 'media thing',
nor was it 'incidental'. Being friends with Chavez? Well, let's just say that you won't end up being 'friends'
with Putin or Obama in a world where there is no 'cleanliness' (politics).
In other words, Pastor Maldonado is as innocent as as a nun doing squats in a cucumber field.
Because of that, he has an F1 drive. Corruptor Maldonado.

Apart from that, I don't think Pastor will have anything to fear, at all. Worse, I could even see this guy get some powerfull political position in the future (won't make it president, but that's not to say he wont have 'fun').

Anything would be better than F1 imho.There are enough snakes in the F1 already, the worst thing to happen to F1 is to give a snake a seat. Unfortunately, we're already there. Fortunately, there are still seats vacant of snakes.

annnnnyhooow. Lotus-Mercedes. I somehow see an interesting road-car collaboration that would be good business for both Lotus and mercedes. Though Mercedes has performance cars (SLS, AMG, blabla), they don't have a 'sports car devision' as the likes of ferrari, mclaren. The relationship with Mclaren 'unfamously' ended because they wanted their own racing cars.
Though on one side that makes me say itll never happen because it might 'steal' Merc customers to lotus.
On the other hand, getting in on the game would grant Merc some finances in the Lotus department (should a true street car division collaboration happen).
A new elise,exige,whatever with a Merc engine in the back (AMG) sounds smashing. I say bring it.

[FW17]

Pastor may not give you much space on the race track but a very nice guy off the track.

[FrukostScones]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/114818

YES, if true!

[elFranZ]

Found an extremely cool article on the web: Lotus and Boeing are developing a new 3D printing technique for carbon parts.
Filling your material with carbon particles is no real news in additive manufacturing, the real deal here is they now can orientate the fibers.

http://www.3ders.org//articles/20140716 ... nting.html

[zere]

Don't know where to put this, also couldn't PM the author because I don't have enough posts yet, however:
The headline of this article: "Lotus equals season best finish in 12th place" is obviously wrong, as Grosjean scored points in Barcelona and Monaco earlier this season.

[skoop]

maldonado extanded hos contract tillt he end of '15 (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115044)