Lotus E21 Renault

[ajinomoto]

I wonder what downforce-related "defects" Kimi is talking about here:

http://www.ts.fi/moottoriurheilu/f1/466 ... apeistakin

He said the car was losing DF...

[Kansas]

I wonder what downforce-related "defects" Kimi is talking about here:

http://www.ts.fi/moottoriurheilu/f1/466 ... apeistakin

He said the car was losing DF...

maybe suspension related.

[Huntresa]

Or it was the fact that he was stuck behind another car 80% of the time?

[Donuts]

I wonder what downforce-related "defects" Kimi is talking about here:

http://www.ts.fi/moottoriurheilu/f1/466 ... apeistakin

He said the car was losing DF...

maybe suspension related.

Read the interview on the teams official webpage. He lost a part of the front wing on the initial laps.

[Kansas]

kimi said the car behave strangely after friday. The team found some bugs on Sat evening, and all of it will be sorted by Shanghai according to the article posted by ajinomoto

Fw damage just make matter worst.

[raymondu999]

Perhaps, similarly to the Brawn BGP001 and the E20, the E21 is a very temperature-sensitive car. Kimi was getting snap-oversteer mid-corner through most of the sweepers, even in the dry, on Saturday and Sunday.

[ptw]

I wonder what downforce-related "defects" Kimi is talking about here:

http://www.ts.fi/moottoriurheilu/f1/466 ... apeistakin

He said the car was losing DF...

maybe suspension related.

Read the interview on the teams official webpage. He lost a part of the front wing on the initial laps.

Main problems, Kimi had during the race have nothing to do with front wing.
That, of course, did not help and have costed him some time, but main issue was traction. He could not accelerate properly from slow corners and hence, had difficulties with overtaking other cars despite using DRS and having one of the highest max speeds in the trap.
That must be something to do with the rear of the car and not the front.

[stefan_]

Craig Scarborough: Interesting pic from F1 Testing: tracking wheel and wheelnut useage

[Ral]

I wonder what downforce-related "defects" Kimi is talking about here:

http://www.ts.fi/moottoriurheilu/f1/466 ... apeistakin
He said the car was losing DF...

maybe suspension related.

Read the interview on the teams official webpage. He lost a part of the front wing on the initial laps.

Main problems, Kimi had during the race have nothing to do with front wing.
That, of course, did not help and have costed him some time, but main issue was traction. He could not accelerate properly from slow corners and hence, had difficulties with overtaking other cars despite using DRS and having one of the highest max speeds in the trap.
That must be something to do with the rear of the car and not the front.

This is a person's (as opposed to Google) translation of an interview with Turun Sanomat:

The tough battle took the grip away even from Räikkönen's hands

F1 | Turun Sanomat 03:19



Kimi Räikkönen's Lotus lost it's victorious speed in one week - or rather in one night.

Kimi was still the fastest man on the track on Friday in Malaysia. On Sunday Räikkönen whipped his Lotus into 7th and got only the 13th fastest laptime in his names.

The 56-lap long squeeze with a car that lost traction was a tough experience for Kimi.

When a dehydrated Räikkönen took another drinking bottle again from the team's fridge, it fell on the floor right away.

– I can't keep anything in my hands. That's how tough it was to squeeze during the whole race, Räikkönen laughed to Turun Sanomat.

– I was expecting us to be much more behind the lead when comparing it to how difficult our car proved to be in the race.

The car munched downforce

The race started on a wet track with the same mid-term tires Lotus lost their grip with in qualification. Did it bug you when the weather was was like that right from the start?

– The rain didn't bug me, what bugged me was the car not working. For some reason we lost more and more downforce during the whole race. It actually munched it. What can you do... We tried to do what we were able to do. The main thing is that we pulled off at least a few points from all of this.

Räikkönen got even more difficulties after an accident in the start.

– I hit someone's rear tire and my front wing lost a piece. It didn't exactly help the speed.

Räikkönen managed to make four overtakes, but he spent a lot of time in the so called dirty air behind McLaren's Sergio Perez and Sauber's Nico Hülkenberg.

– If the car would have been in a better 'oxygen' (lol, he means 'stitch' but couldn't resist translating it), then I would have passed them quickly. But it became more and more difficult when losing downforce.

Flaws found that need to be fixed

It's clear that Lotus has to improve the car to the next race in China.

– If we get it to work in China like it worked on Friday in Malaysia then we have nothing to worry about. I guess we already know why the traction vanished, but it's difficult to say for sure. On Saturday evening we found a few other flaws also. All the flaws should be fixed to China.

Lotus had once again one pitstop less than the other top teams, but now the strategy didn't work like it did in Australia.

– I don't think that our position would have changed even if we had made one more pitstop. And I don't think it would had happened in Australia either. With one more pitstop we could have raced flat out all the time and it wouldn't had affected speed-wise at all when comparing to others.

Crash course with Hülkenberg

Räikkönen clashed hard especially with Hülkenberg. They nearly crashed during the pitstop and then they clashed in a racing incident.

– These days you can basically come to the paddock lane as long as you leave some room, but he should not drive at me on the straight lane. Even if it didn't change the end result in any way, Räikkönen pulled Nico's hair.

Hülkenberg defended himself by saying that he didn't see properly when the fluid-tube had exploded inside his helmet which hindered the visibility.

In the end Räikkönen finally overtook Hülkenberg and made three other successful overtakes which required a lot of struggling.

Turun Sanomat, Kuala Lumpur

HEIKKI KULTA

http://www.ts.fi/moottoriurheilu/f1/466 ... apeistakin

[stefan_]

Tobias Grüner F1
The metal deflector on the floor shows, how much the new exhaust was moved to the front.

[korzeniow]

Exhaust or the tunnel? I guess he ment the latter

[nlehoullier]

I hope I am not doing anything wrong reposting these pictures, please let me know if I should just be quoting them instead. I will edit my post. I just want to ask if anyone has any insight into the piece of bodywork in each of these photos. It is attached to the beam wing, with either two pieces of foil tape or three. Just a central support?

[raymondu999]

Raikkonen mentioned "downforce defects" in Malaysia. I noticed he was often getting snap oversteer mid T5 and T12 too, the fast left hand sweepers. Could it be that the smaller tunnel isn't working quite yet? As in, something is causing it to stall/choke too early, at certain speeds and/or yaw angles?

[ptw]

I hope I am not doing anything wrong reposting these pictures, please let me know if I should just be quoting them instead. I will edit my post. I just want to ask if anyone has any insight into the piece of bodywork in each of these photos. It is attached to the beam wing, with either two pieces of foil tape or three. Just a central support?

Probably they use that part to mount the DRD duct

[Kansas]

Raikkonen mentioned "downforce defects" in Malaysia. I noticed he was often getting snap oversteer mid T5 and T12 too, the fast left hand sweepers. Could it be that the smaller tunnel isn't working quite yet? As in, something is causing it to stall/choke too early, at certain speeds and/or yaw angles?

thats the only changes made since melbourne gp....

guess the team need further modification to optimize it.