Finland's Kimi Raikkonen shook down the new Renault-powered Lotus E20 Monday at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain.
Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1 E20. (Photo: WRI2)
All three drivers, Raikkonen, Romain Grosjean and reserve driver Jerome d'Ambrosio were on location for a photo shoot.
Eric Boullier, Kimi Raikkonen, Jerome d'Ambrosio, Romain Grosjean, James Allison, Lotus F1 E20. (Photo: WRI2)
The new Lotus E20 was unveiled yesterday with a video posted on the web. Today, former F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen enjoyed to drive some laps for filming purposes. The real work will begin tomorrow as the team will embark in the intense development programme of the E20.
For Lotus, née Renault, the new rules stated that they had to get rid of the innovative but somewhat inefficient forward exhausts.
"Last year's cars had quite a variety of exhaust layouts, with differing levels of success. If the latest rules really have been successful in resetting the power of the exhausts to a much lower level, then that's an opportunity for a reshuffle of the pack," said Lotus F1 Team Technical Director James Allison.
Lotus F1 E20. (Photo: WRi2)
"Depending on where you look, some parts of the new E20 car are a ground-up redesign and in other areas we have further optimised the best bits of the design philosophy we've adopted for several seasons," Allison continued.
Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1 E20. (Photo: WRI2)
"As far as the exhausts are concerned, our forward exhausts would now be illegal under the new rules and didn't live up to our expectations in any case. So that part of the car we say goodbye to and welcome in a complete re-design. The front and rear suspension layouts are substantially revised to try and give us better aerodynamic opportunities," he explained.
Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1 E20. (Photo: WRI2)
"The front wing is a continuation of the concepts we have worked on since the 2009 rules were published. The rear wing system, we've continued to try to work on having a satisfactory level of rear downforce stability, whilst having a maximum DRS switching potential," Allison said.
