Lotus E21 Renault

[SectorOne]

I´m amazed how this car can drag it´s bottom around on fumes yet be perfectly capable of adding another 150 kilos of fuel for the race and still not wear out the board.

It´s also quite interesting as the car seems to have no rake at all in motion.

[iotar__]

Seems to me from Lotus´s comments that the new slimmer bodywork is faster than this stupid device:

Romain didn’t have a perfect last lap and suffered from understeer in Turn 15 whilst there didn’t seem to be much more pace in Kimi’s car.

It means no such thing, and how very un-technical of you.

[Kansas]

I´m amazed how this car can drag it´s bottom around on fumes yet be perfectly capable of adding another 150 kilos of fuel for the race and still not wear out the board.

It´s also quite interesting as the car seems to have no rake at all in motion.

Mechanically, Lotus is probably the best car.

[stefan_]

Great Britain 2013 - Sunday (30.06.2013)

[Blackout]

Great Britain 2013 - Sunday (30.06.2013)

Nice pic. It's a bigger update than I thought. the whole fairing around the brakes has been reworked

[Matt Somers]

DRD is always going to be a contentious issue due to the way it stalls the Rear Wing, Lotus have once more made some changes to try and graduate the way it stalls with the Periscope now short of the Mainplane and the outlet at the fore. Meanwhile they've added more exits at the bottom of the periscope (in front of the Monkey Seat) in order to try and make that switching effect less in consistent. The problem especially at a circuit like Silverstone is the threshold at which it stalls.

Here's an image I mocked up showing the detail

[stefan_]

Great Britain 2013 - Sunday (30.06.2013)

[Blackout]

Better pic for the new front wheels
Bottom=old

[Huntresa]

So looking at that Grosjean and Raikonnen pretty much had the same top speeds we can assume they are using the device to put on more downforce and then negating the top speed penalty via the device.

[WillerZ]

So looking at that Grosjean and Raikonnen pretty much had the same top speeds we can assume they are using the device to put on more downforce and then negating the top speed penalty via the device.

Trackside on Friday it didn't look like there was a lot of difference in grip between Romain and Kimi's cars in the corners; I suspect, as with the F-duct cars of 2010, there is some amount of stalling always happening so you have to add more wing angle to counteract that.

Judging by their qualifying performances (Romain very slightly faster in Q2 & Q3) I would say that the device looks to be right on the break-even knife edge right now: it appears to make no difference overall whether you use it or not. Their fastest laps in the race give Kimi the edge by a larger margin of 0.3s, but Romain had a progressively worsening front wing problem from quite early in the race so wasn't really setting comparable times by that stage (lap 48ish).

[MarkedOne8]

Ok, Grosjean had new slim rear bodywork. Kimi had DRD.

Kimi was 8-0 in Qualifying battles with Grosjean this year. Silverstone is the first GP this year where Grosjean outqualified Kimi. That tells me (at least me) that slim rear bodywork is real improvement, a couple of tenths. Also, I don't believe DRD is negative on time delta. It should help at leas a tenth per lap. So, Kimi with new rear bodywork should be real threat.

[Blackout]

But KR had the old front wing and the new front wheels for qualy and race (left) while RG had the old wheels and the new front wing

[Kansas]

just how poor Lotus is financially??

why couldn't they offer both drivers full package of new updates?? ( of course the slim bodywork is impossible to work with DRD at this time. However, Alan Permane assured me on twitter that they will achieve that in Nurburgring and Hungary)

[quidam]

Ok, Grosjean had new slim rear bodywork. Kimi had DRD.

Kimi was 8-0 in Qualifying battles with Grosjean this year. Silverstone is the first GP this year where Grosjean outqualified Kimi. That tells me (at least me) that slim rear bodywork is real improvement, a couple of tenths. Also, I don't believe DRD is negative on time delta. It should help at leas a tenth per lap. So, Kimi with new rear bodywork should be real threat.

+1

[stefan_]

just how poor Lotus is financially??

why couldn't they offer both drivers full package of new updates?? ( of course the slim bodywork is impossible to work with DRD at this time. However, Alan Permane assured me on twitter that they will achieve that in Nurburgring and Hungary)

I think it was more about testing back to back rather than not having the money to put the updates on both cars. Silverstone is a good track where they could see how each update behaves on the car so they can get the best things out of them and fit the best one on both cars in the future.