I think it will be a transition car. Probably conservative in terms of design, but making more of the Merc power in the back than this years' car did. Probably will fight more with Force India.
We'll see the real Renault car in 2017.
Lotus were already designing for the Renault PU many months ago, and also for the Mercedes PU just in case.Stalker1 wrote:I agree with Threep ja ME4ME. Lack of money, late switch to Renault PU and transition period from private team to factory team- that all is going to have a significant effect on the teams performance. I believe, they will start focusing solely on the 2017 car quite early, maybe even in June,July.
The PU unit switch will considerably affect the rear part of the car and maybe also the center of gravity. Redesigning is probably already underway.
Mercedes was once Brawn, not Lotus/Renault.ringo wrote:The car will be as good as it is able to be. The was a team called Brawn in the not too distant past.
They didn't do so badly for a transitional team.
It's just difficult to tell how good a car will be, it's really down to the engineer team and operational structure.
I think he had a typo. Replace "the was a team" with "there was a team"wuzak wrote:Mercedes was once Brawn, not Lotus/Renault.ringo wrote:The car will be as good as it is able to be. The was a team called Brawn in the not too distant past.
They didn't do so badly for a transitional team.
It's just difficult to tell how good a car will be, it's really down to the engineer team and operational structure.
Before it was called Lotus, it was Renault.
Those 2 situations can't possibly be compared.ringo wrote:The car will be as good as it is able to be. The was a team called Brawn in the not too distant past.
They didn't do so badly for a transitional team.
There have been massive lay offs into 2015 as far as I know at Lotus. And I doubt that there was any real development for 2016 until Renault finally bought them. And as Williams has been shifting focus on 2016 relatively early. So I'd doubt that Renault will be better than 5th next year.ringo wrote:There is still no evidence to suggest that their car will not be competitive.
I can't recall a period where Lotus has made a bad chassis. Most of their issues were in the last two years and those had to do with Power unit, and or the team itself under threat of shutting down which prevented development. This car will be a regular points scorer and may even appear on the podium once in a while now that they are a works team that can can develop throughout the year.