The Technical Director of the Lotus Renault GP Formula 1 admitted that the R31 suffers on the slow speed, twisty circuits and the revolutionary forward blowing exhausts did not provide the expected results.
“Anybody can spot that we have suffered very poor performance at Monaco, Hungary and Singapore," said Renault technical director James Allison.
“It is much harder to say with any precision just what it is about our car that can impact performance at these low speed tracks. Neither is it clear why Singapore was notably worse than either Monaco or Hungary. The simplest explanation is that there is not enough downforce in low speed corners,” he added.
The British engineer added that the forward exhausts complicated the development of the car.
“We know from our experiments with rear blowing exhausts earlier in the year that they do offer a lot more rear downforce – especially at high rear ride heights,” he said.
“We know that slow speed tracks allow the rear to be held up high in all the corners and we know that rear downforce is a prized asset for coping with the traction demand at these tracks. We also know that the forward exhaust, by contrast, performs more strongly once the rear ride height starts to compress – something that cannot be avoided in medium and high speed corners. It is probably reasonable to conclude that this is the basic mechanism behind the way that we shed so much competitiveness at slow speed tracks,” he added.
Allison indicated that the R31 seems to be too sensitive to different forms of variations, which is not the case with the Red Bull RB7.
“There's more than just the exhausts. Even at Spa and Monza, where our performance was acceptable, we still had to tweak the aerodynamic setup during the weekend. Our car is very sensitive and extremely unforgiving of even the slightest geometric misalignment. This weekend, we were plagued by rear wing and floor issues that all seem to be even more sensitive at very low speeds than they are at the higher speeds where our car is more comfortable,” James Allison said.
“Anybody can spot that we have suffered very poor performance at Monaco, Hungary and Singapore," said Renault technical director James Allison.
“It is much harder to say with any precision just what it is about our car that can impact performance at these low speed tracks. Neither is it clear why Singapore was notably worse than either Monaco or Hungary. The simplest explanation is that there is not enough downforce in low speed corners,” he added.
The British engineer added that the forward exhausts complicated the development of the car.
“We know from our experiments with rear blowing exhausts earlier in the year that they do offer a lot more rear downforce – especially at high rear ride heights,” he said.
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| Vitaly Petrov, Lotus Renault GP. (Photo: Pirelli) |
“We know that slow speed tracks allow the rear to be held up high in all the corners and we know that rear downforce is a prized asset for coping with the traction demand at these tracks. We also know that the forward exhaust, by contrast, performs more strongly once the rear ride height starts to compress – something that cannot be avoided in medium and high speed corners. It is probably reasonable to conclude that this is the basic mechanism behind the way that we shed so much competitiveness at slow speed tracks,” he added.
Allison indicated that the R31 seems to be too sensitive to different forms of variations, which is not the case with the Red Bull RB7.
“There's more than just the exhausts. Even at Spa and Monza, where our performance was acceptable, we still had to tweak the aerodynamic setup during the weekend. Our car is very sensitive and extremely unforgiving of even the slightest geometric misalignment. This weekend, we were plagued by rear wing and floor issues that all seem to be even more sensitive at very low speeds than they are at the higher speeds where our car is more comfortable,” James Allison said.