Lotus E21 Renault

[langwadt]

I think it was a bad decision. Why penalise the team for almost exactly the same infringement that went unpunished months ago. Again the stewards lack consistency.

Having said that, Lotus must have been aware that they might not get away with it next time so you could argue that they should've done something about it. All of the other cars appear to be able to handle the abuse.

Interestingly, both events have occurred on the short wheelbase E21 with the backward sweeping splitter stay.

But few cars go wide and hit the kerbs that are situated at turn 3 exit. We 'saw' three cars hit those Kerbs: Hamilton at the beginning of his first fast lap in Q3. He goes wide, the car bottoms and even jumps and, short time after that, one of his wishbones breaks. Brawn says one of the kerbs could be responsible for that. Brundle too.
Then Raikkonen hits the same kerbs and the telemtry says the tea tray endured a 25g shock. Boullier said the sensors stopped working after that because everything broke inside that tea tray.
Then Alonso did the same, endured 25g too and went to the Hospital.

Grosjean's floor endured 11g 'only' in Hungary...
Like Ral says it was a very bad decisions... and aero parts are not supposed to witstand that kind of shocks.

allowing parts to be repeatedly illegal as long as it cause by "damage" would open a huge hole in regulations

so first time is assumed to be an error, next time is assumed to be exploiting it

[Ral]

Which is fine in and of itself.

But the impact experienced by the part was 25G. At 640KG (with fuel in addition to that), that's an instantaneous 16,000kg load at least. The test the car failed is a 200kg flex test.

So my question remains: the test is set up to keep teams from designing parts flexing under a load of up to 200kg, but is there a load specified in the regulations up to which parts are not allowed to break? Did the stewards in Hungary tell Lotus by how much they were expecting Lotus to strengthen up the part that failed, to avoid being penalized if it happened again? And, given that the load in the previous incident was a "mere" 19G, would it not have been possible to withhold any judgement until after the race at which point a test could have been carried out to see what load it could experience and judge if that was sufficiently stronger than what had gone before or something?

What I'm saying is, how did they come to a decision that Lotus hadn't done enough to fix the issue when
a) the impact was much larger this time than the previous time at near enough a third more and
b) they (as far as reported) never knew how strong the strut had been and how strong it was this time

Now, it's possible they just asked Lotus point blank if the part was the exact same spec as before and if the answer to that was yes, than I can partly see their point. But I still don't see how a part breaking at over 80 times the load defined in the regulations, can seriously be considered "designed to break" which in itself would be refuted by the number of races in between the last time this happened.

[turbof1]

You can't compare the instant impact of 25G with a constant pressure of 200kg. Actually you can't compare a part breaking off with a test meant to check if a part isn't too flexible.

I also see a comparison between the t- tray and alonso's neck. Seriously? Comparing flesh and bone with a laminated plank, carbon fibre and titanium? Next time when my food is too salty I'll make the remark that it tastes exactly like battery acid, which is no more rediculous then above comparisons. Sorry blackout to put it this way, but you do have to understand that it is basicilly a chewbakka defense you are putting up there. Also you mentioned that of the 3 cars going wide, Lotus was the only one who broke the supports of the t- tray. I think that is the better conclusion out of it.

Either Lotus chooses a very low ride height set up which brings the t-tray at risks, or the supports are below average weak, or a combination of both. The only none-lotus related t-tray failure I recall goes back to Australia 2011, where Hamilton missed during the race the first corner (somewhere midrace) had to go to the very, very bumpy grass section and to continue the race with the tray hanging loose. Inbetween that event, which is much more forgiveable because it putted the tray under much more stress, and Hungary 2013 we never heard again from a t-tray or floor support failure, while ample events were there when it was put under similar stress.

[Mikey_s]

allowing parts to be repeatedly illegal as long as it cause by "damage" would open a huge hole in regulations

so first time is assumed to be an error, next time is assumed to be exploiting it

I think you are correct, although one way to deal with this would be to take a view on whether 'damage' was likely to improve the performance of the car or not. In this instance the, so called, damage had a good chance of improving the performance of the car IF the tea tray was not flapping around randomly, but flexing in a well defined and beneficial way.

Normally damage is highly undesirable and detracts from the performance of the car. As such, if Lotus 'damaged' the car and did not see the need to repair it before the next run I believe the scrutineers could conceive that such damage was indeed beneficial.
Just my view...

[turbof1]

The FIA doesn't take into account if it is performance-enhancing or not. Back in 2011 both sauber cars got disqualified from the race because by manufacturing mistake the rear wing upper element was a bit too big, a few milimetres. They didn't gained performance from it, but they got punished anyhow.

They do take a very hard line in this, but I don't think they have a choice because else it can be abused. The way it looks, Lotus also didn't made any effort to improve the strength of the support. Perhaps things would have played out differently if they could show that they increases its strength considerably, but still failed due higher G forces.

[Blackout]

Where did I compare the Lotus's T-tray with Alonso's neck All I said is a response to the ones who did ask this question: ''why Lotus ?'' ''why it did'nt happen to others'' And all I said was: 3 drivers hit those Kerbs and the three got big problems...

I dont think Lotus had the duty to strengthen the tea tray or the support. Aero parts are not meant to witstand big shocks AFAIK. when they break in an incident/accident, you have the right to change them before the race AFAIK.
And as I said, the first time, In Hungary, it was 11g. This time it's more than the double. So it's a different case.
And just listen to the stewards, their statements are ridiculous.

[turbof1]

Where did I compare the Lotus's T-tray with Alonso's neck All I said is a response to the ones who did ask this question: ''why Lotus ?'' ''why it did'nt happen to others'' And all I said was: 3 drivers hit those Kerbs and the three got big problems...

I dont think Lotus had the duty to strengthen the tea tray or the support. Aero parts are not meant to witstand big shocks AFAIK. when they break in an incident/accident, you have the right to change them before the race AFAIK.
And as I said, the first time, In Hungary, it was 11g. This time it's more than the double. So it's a different case.
And just listen to the stewards, their statements are ridiculous.

They have to draft up something official. I don't always agree with the reasoning, official or non-official, of the stewards, but I find that in this case they made a fair point: Lotus designed the support too lightweight. The support itself isn't any use to the aero, but is specifically there to keep the floor legal, to keep it from bending too much.

It is Lotus their duty to keep the car legal. Agreed that circumstances can sometimes be totally against you and that in such cases the stewards have to be reasonable, which they were in Hungary. Lotus however should have taken measures to avoid making it break again. Apperently they didn't. Else they could have reasoned with the stewards, I am sure of that, pointing at the reinforcements they made to the structure but with the G force being over double as high it still snapped. But they didn't have that hand, simply because they kept it the same it was.

It is like you said: 3 cars went through the same place, all 3 had problems, but only 1 came out technically illegal. It's very much possible for a decently designed support to widstand 25G. Lotus took the risk of designing one which can't handle that. Their choice, and I am sure it pays off in raw performance, but they should also pay the price when it snaps and through that making the car not complying with the rules.
The FIA had to take a stand: if they allowed it, teams could use this a precedence, design very weak supports and run them over the curbs to break them, gaining a performance advantage.

[fenix4life]

Kimi will not race the last 2 races. He will get surgery for his back.

source: eurosport.fr

http://www.eurosport.fr/formule-1/saiso ... tory.shtml

[zoro_f1]

@fenix4life this thread is for Lotus Renault E21 car, but not for their drivers or team news... there is other board for this -->> [http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... &start=360]

[tony77g]

GP USA Austin
Long wheelbase also Kovalainen

[wesley123]

Different, fatter bulge under the nose

[turbof1]

So with Raikkonen out, will they be driving both long wheelbase cars?

[emmepi27]

Different, fatter bulge under the nose

Nope, it's the same of LWB (with second bulge near cockpit)

[wesley123]

Oh yes, my mistake. The lighting gave the bulge a bit of a flatter look

[stefan_]

So with Raikkonen out, will they be driving both long wheelbase cars?

Yep.