Q+A with Lotus' Nick Chester
Lotus F1 Team Technical Director Nick Chester is looking forward to a solid season finale at Abu Dhabi, and hopeful of a good result in the team's final race with Renault power.
The team has good memories of Abu Dhabi, what kind of performance can we expect at the 2014 season finale? We would really like to be fighting for points with both cars. We made good progress in Austin and we should be nearer to that level of relative performance than we were in Interlagos where we knew we would face a challenge due to the nature of the track. For Abu Dhabi we believe that the E22 should perform quite well, particularly on the soft and super soft tyres. Yas Marina is a circuit where we’ve performed well in the past so we’d certainly like to end what has been a very tough season with a positive finish.
How does the drop in temperature affect the car as day turns to night at Abu Dhabi? It can be quite tricky to manage that aspect as we can’t influence the change in track temperature. However, we know what the trend will be and we will balance the car toward mid-race temperatures and come up with a medium set-up to cover the 55 laps. It may also affect our strategy choice for how many laps we run on each set of tyres.
What are your thoughts about the tyre selection for Abu Dhabi? The tyre selection for this last Grand Prix will make for an interesting race, with perhaps one more stop than if Pirelli had brought the medium and soft compounds. What’s certain is that it gives everyone a few more possibilities.
Good change of direction is one of the keys to a good lap at Abu Dhabi with the succession of quick and medium speed corners. What aspects of the car can be focused on to ensure this is achieved? A good change of direction is something that’s always required in a car regardless of the circuit specifics, although some circuits highlight a deficiency more than others. Where it can be difficult is to be able to achieve a good change in direction without compromising control of the car in other parts of the circuit, for example making the car too nervous on braking or too nervous in high speed corners. We will be working to get a good change of direction, however not at the expense of some of the other areas on the track. We will work on aero and mechanical set-up to get there.
Are you planning to test any specific 2015 developments you can talk about during the free practice sessions? We will carry on our programme which is geared towards next year. We’re looking at evaluating a new steering wheel with a larger display and there will be some bodywork changes that the eagle-eyed might notice.
We didn’t come away with points from Interlagos, what were the main challenges we faced during the race? The main challenges for us - and indeed for most of the teams - were to manage the tyre wear and degradation. As a result, we could see a few different strategies during the race. It would have been interesting to see what Romain would have done had he been able to finish the race. As he went onto the soft tyres he was lapping quite quickly but then he had an ignition issue with the Power Unit. Pastor drove pretty well to go from eighteenth to twelfth. In his second stint, which was his first stint on the medium compound, he unfortunately blistered the tyres. Had he not, then he might have been in a position to finish further up.
It will be the final race with Renault power at Abu Dhabi. What are your best personal memories of working with them over the years? There are many memories having worked with Renault for twenty years. For me, working as part of the race team winning the Monaco Grand Prix with Jarno Trulli in 2004 and then winning the 2005 and 2006 Championships with Fernando. There have been many good times with Renault and we have enjoyed working with them.
