Blown exhaust: LRGP lost time

At the start of the season, Ross Brawn did not hesitate to affirm that the blown exhaust (gases released from the front, Editor's note) of Lotus Renault GP would provide a greater performance gain than the double diffuser unveiled by Brawn GP in 2009. Unfortunately, the concept delayed the development of the team?enstone, who experienced a nightmarish Grand Prix in Singapore.

« When I made the decision to adopt this exhaust, it was an exciting concept, significantly more efficient than a classic rearward system., admitted James Allison. He seemed to have a lot of potential, but it was difficult for us to improve his performance at the rate we hoped for. ».

Several reasons for this. “ First of all, development is very complicated. When we took it out of the boxes, it was good but the progression curve was not as strong as expected. Then, it did not provide the expected support on certain circuits. In fact, we fell far short of our competitors ". Singapore was the typical example, Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov failing to place better than 12th and 14th.

To remedy these concerns, LRGP tried to return to a more traditional solution in Monaco, then in Hungary, without success. “ In Singapore we brought? a mix of both, Allison continues. We were reasonably optimistic but obviously on low speed circuits we are struggling. We had not judged the difficulty in curves negotiated between 60 and 100 km/h. We are not able to perfect these types of turns in the wind tunnel. ».

According to the Technical Director, things should get better by the end of the season. “ On the majority of circuits, this should be finehe argued. Force India is getting closer and we need to get good results to stay ahead of them ».

Find the full report of the Singapore Grand Prix in issue 1824 of AUTOhebdo.