Nick Chester, technical director of Lotus Formula 1 Team confirmed Monday the team would not run the new E22 turbo car at Jerez de la Frontera, Spain late January.
In an interview published by Lotus, Chester confirmed that the development programme of the turbocharged E22 has been ongoing for over two years.
The engineer who took over the development of the E22 after James Allisson’ departure to Ferrari, said “There are certain concepts from the E21 which are still valid for the E22, but in particular our development methodology and synchronisation with our various simulations is especially relevant and promising.”
He added that the various homologation tests which took place before Christmas including chassis squeeze and side impact loading tests as well as the rear crash structure. “We just have the nose test to complete the car’s homologation. We’ve undertaken chassis fits for Romain (Grosjean) and Pastor (Maldonado)”.
However, Chester revealed that the E22 would be launched later than most other big teams, sort of confirming that the team is running behind schedule.
“We’re going to keep our car under wraps a little longer than some other teams”, he said.
“We’ve decided that attending the Jerez test isn’t ideal for our build and development programme. We are likely to unveil the car before attending the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we should really be able to put the car through its paces in representative conditions,” he added.
In an interview published by Lotus, Chester confirmed that the development programme of the turbocharged E22 has been ongoing for over two years.
The engineer who took over the development of the E22 after James Allisson’ departure to Ferrari, said “There are certain concepts from the E21 which are still valid for the E22, but in particular our development methodology and synchronisation with our various simulations is especially relevant and promising.”
He added that the various homologation tests which took place before Christmas including chassis squeeze and side impact loading tests as well as the rear crash structure. “We just have the nose test to complete the car’s homologation. We’ve undertaken chassis fits for Romain (Grosjean) and Pastor (Maldonado)”.
However, Chester revealed that the E22 would be launched later than most other big teams, sort of confirming that the team is running behind schedule.
“We’re going to keep our car under wraps a little longer than some other teams”, he said.
“We’ve decided that attending the Jerez test isn’t ideal for our build and development programme. We are likely to unveil the car before attending the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we should really be able to put the car through its paces in representative conditions,” he added.