astracrazy wrote:if the new renault engine and gearbox was put into this years car, roughly, how much extra time would it be worth?
Thats a tough one.
In terms of driveability, alot.
In terms of traction, track dependant.
In temrs of fuel consumption, comparible now.
In terms of how relyable, much to gain.
In terms of useable torque band and power, better torque but probably less power going on figures from the start of the season.
In terms of gearbox pickup points for suspension, probably more sympothetic to the Xtrac one.
In terms of taking all the above into concideration, you could be talking arround 0.2 to 0.3 a lap for each of those, add that up and you coul;d be talking about maybes 1.5 seconds roughly. Taking the fact the T127 is a second to second and a half off the pace now, you could be putting them right into the mid feild battle with a car that isnt built for pure speed.
Add all that baseline data, plus the Renault RS27, gearbox and KERS they will have access to, plus the Mark Smith factor with Gascogyne and the new Lotus aero team, you could say that will get them 2.5 to 3.2 seconds a lap faster than they currently are, but if you take into concideration that all teams will take up to second off their lap times at the end of 2010 to the start of 2011, id say that Team Lotus will be arround where the P10 to P16 battle currently is, easily.
But all is objecture and speculation till we see what is what in 2011 pre-season testing.