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With the E21’s inaugural on-track test complete, Lotus F1 Team Technical Director James Allison explains where we’re at and what happens next... How useful has the first week of testing been at Jerez? Winter testing is exceedingly precious. We get just 12 days to prove out a very complex vehicle. Twelve days to push the car and the team to make sure that we are match fit by the time we get to Melbourne. Jerez offers the teams four days of guaranteed good weather on a challenging track that will stress the car from both a reliability and a performance point of view. We leave this first test in high spirits having learned that the E21 looks both competitive and reasonably reliable. What are the initial conclusions about the 2013 Pirelli tyres? Pirelli has changed both the internal construction of the tyres and also the tread rubber compound. In the former they have tried to improve the ability of the tyre to handle braking and cornering loads simultaneously and in the latter they are hoping to deliver exciting racing by aiming for softer tyre compounds that suffer rapid lap time degradation as they wear. From what we have seen so far the construction changes are helpful and we are adjusting our setup to make the most of them. Regarding the compound choices, we are happy with the direction that Pirelli are headed and the challenge for us is to find out how to make the rubber last better than our competition. Now the first test is complete, what happens next for the team? The main thrust of activity between now and Melbourne is to build up the quantity of stock so that we can go racing. We are using just one chassis here in Jerez, but in a month’s time we need to have four tubs ready to go. Gearboxes, suspension, bodywork and thousands of small parts all need to be made to allow us to commence the racing campaign. At the same time, we will be furiously building a crucial set of Melbourne performance upgrades to allow us to stay competitive. While the factory sweats to get this work completed, the travelling component of the team will plan and execute the remaining two tests. They will push the car as hard as they can to make sure we have amplified its strengths and minimised its weaknesses before we have to use it in anger. The car looked good in Jerez last year, but then the team had to stop testing after half a day at Barcelona; any concerns this time heading to the Circuit de Catalunya? We had a problem last year because we designed a single joint poorly. We had created a suspension mounting which was capable of withstanding the loads if it had been made absolutely perfectly. However, that style of joint was very difficult to make accurately enough to get repeatable performance from each chassis. We ran chassis #01 at Jerez and the suspension joint in this chassis was good enough to cope with the loads. We ran chassis #02 at Barcelona and the joint in this one was made just a whisker differently; it was not capable of taking the loads and so failed instantly. Once we realised our error we redesigned the joint so that the glue lines were capable of delivering the required strength without any scatter from chassis to chassis. On the E21 we’ve paid particular attention to this area so we’re not expecting any repeat dramas.

Kimi Räikkönen completed his second day at the wheel of the E21 by setting the fastest time to conclude an encouraging week for Lotus F1 Team at the first pre-season test in Jerez. The Finn ran through a continued programme of aerodynamic assessments as the fine Jerez weather continued. Proceedings today were interrupted by red flag periods including a lengthy pause for track run-off repairs, meaning track running concluded 30 minutes later than billed. Fast Facts: Track: Jerez, Spain, 4.4km Chassis: E21-01 Weather: Sunny, ambient 5-18°C, track 7-26°C Programme: Systems checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, assessment of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package, exhaust exit evaluations. Laps Completed: 83 Classification: P1, 1:18.148 Interruptions: Red flags and track repairs. What’s Next? The team returns to Enstone. Testing resumes in Barcelona on February 19. Kimi Räikkönen: “We continued our work from yesterday and made some good progress. We’re at the top of the timing monitors, but that means nothing in testing. Our focus has been testing parts on the car, but I’ve been able to get the set-up more to my liking. For sure there’s more work to be done in this area, but that’s what we’re here for. The car feels strong and we seem to have a good idea of where we’re going with improvements. Let’s see what happens in Barcelona.” James Allison, Technical Director: “We certainly have a reasonable baseline to be working from and plenty of data to analyse back at Enstone next week. The E21 was immediately easy to drive which is what drivers want, and it’s demonstrated satisfactory pace from what we’ve seen so far. We’ve had a few minor gremlins to iron out, which is what testing is all about, but nothing to cause too much concern. We’ve established a baseline set-up and gained good data about various aerodynamic packages we wanted to test; particularly with exhaust exit evaluations. Both drivers have pronounced themselves relatively happy with the E21 and we know where we’re going with the next developments.”

Kimi Räikkönen had his first taste of the E21 on track during the third day of testing in Jerez, Spain, ending the day with the 4th fastest time after a programme of aerodynamic assessment. A crisp morning gave way to glorious blue skies as the team ran through a variety of exhaust evaluations. Running for Kimi ended early due to a clutch issue. Fast Facts: Track: Jerez, Spain, 4.4km Chassis: E21-01 Weather: Sunny, ambient 5-18°C, track 7-26°C Programme: System checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, evaluation of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package. Laps Completed: 40 Classification: P4, 1:19.200 Interruptions: Running curtailed early (clutch). What’s Next? Kimi Räikkönen will take the wheel of the E21 for final day of the Jerez test tomorrow. Kimi Räikkönen: “It was good to get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car again. The E21 feels quite good so far, even if the balance isn’t quite to my liking yet. That didn’t stop us going through the programme we wanted to do which had a lot of aero runs in it. We know the car can go faster, we were just running through what we needed to achieve. It’s a shame that we had a clutch issue at the end of the day, but that’s why we come testing so we can find these problems and fix them.” Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Although we haven’t covered as many laps as we have on the previous two days we have still have been very productive. We spent much of the morning testing various exhaust exit specifications for our Coandă system. The car isn’t yet fully to Kimi’s liking, but we improved this through the day. We still have work to do with the balance, which is something we’ll work on tomorrow. Running ended early for us with a clutch failure which we’re investigating, but overall we’ve had a productive day of aero and exhaust testing.”

Romain Grosjean ended the second day of testing at Jerez as comfortably the fastest man on track as the team continued its evaluation programme with the E21. Under blue skies with occasional cloud coverage, Romain completed 95 laps; many of which dipped into the 1min 18s. He ended the day with the best time set thus far this week – a 1min 18.218secs – with no other car running under 1min 19.000secs. Fast Facts: Track: Jerez, Spain, 4.4km Chassis: E21-01 Weather: Sunny, ambient 5-22°C, track 7-28°C Programme: Systems checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, evaluation of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package, tyre performance assessment. Laps Completed: 95. Classification: P1, 1:18.218. Interruptions: Stopped out on track on lap 96 (fuel). What’s Next? Kimi Räikkönen will take to the wheel of the E21 for the first time tomorrow, before wrapping up the opening test on Friday. Romain Grosjean: “It was good today; the programme went to plan and we showed we have good reliability. For me, the whole test has gone well which bodes well for the year ahead. My feeling in the car is good and it was great to be at the top of the times. Even if it doesn’t mean anything during testing, it’s still good to be at the front. We used the soft, medium and hard compounds and whilst we’re not 100% yet on the differences between each we have a good idea. Kimi will be working on this area for the next two days so we’ll have a better understanding when we head to Barcelona. It’s not easy to understand everything about the car and tyres yet, but I think we’re working quite well and it’s up to us to find the best solutions.” Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “I’m very happy with today’s performance. The pace looks good and we haven’t had any issues with reliability meaning we could complete all of our programme without interruption. We focused on learning more about the 2013 Pirelli tyres and ran with the soft, medium and hard compounds with a variety of different set-ups, both mechanical and aerodynamic, to understand how they react. This combined with a good mileage today to give us some very good data to work through ahead of Kimi getting in the car tomorrow.”

Lotus F1 Team’s 2013 car, the E21, took to the track for the first time with race driver Romain Grosjean at the wheel under bright blue skies in Jerez, Spain. Romain was the fastest man on track for much of the day, ending the afternoon with the third quickest time. 54 laps were completed as the team went through its first day programme of shakedown and assessment. Fast Facts: Track: Jerez, Spain, 4.4km Chassis: E21-01 Weather: Sunny, ambient 7-26°C, track 6-21°C Programme: Systems checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, evaluation of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package. Laps Completed: 54 Classification: P3, 1:19.796 Interruptions: Ballast redeployment and KERS battery change in afternoon. What’s Next? Romain will complete his E21 running at Jerez tomorrow, before handing the car over to team-mate Kimi Räikkönen for the Thursday and Friday sessions. Romain Grosjean: “The feeling is good from the E21; it feels very similar to the E20 from behind the wheel, even if it does look different from the outside. Once again Enstone has produced a car that is quick from the very first lap. We spent a little bit more time than ideal in the garage today, but that’s normal in testing. I’m happy we completed 54 laps, and even happier that all of them were quick. We now have a good idea of the new tyres and we’ll have some challenges from them; the grip level is there but performance does fall away with graining. That said, Jerez is a very specific track in this regard. The speed came easy today and we didn’t respond to the other cars going faster in the afternoon. We should go even better tomorrow.” James Allison, Technical Director: “It’s great to see the fruits of our labours take to the track for the first time here in Jerez. Everything has looked positive so far. The feedback from Romain has been encouraging and on the engineering side there have been no particular dramas of note. Overall it was a promising first day for this car and we hope to continue in this vein for the next days of testing.”

Daniel Abt, Jolyon Palmer and Rio Haryanto were the three drivers who drove the Lotus GP GP2 cars for the last tests session of the year. The german driver was driving for the two days while Palmer and Haryanto respectively drove in day 1 and 2. The team didn't look for performance during these two days but focused on the driving and car setup. The team will now repare 2013 to be ready to fight for both team and drivers titles.

Lotus GP ended a 2 days tests session in Jerez, Spain. 4 drivers shared the wheel of the 3 cars : Robert Visoiu (2 days), Venturini (2 days), Jack Harvey (1 day) et Vittorio Ghirelli (1 day). The team proceeded drivers evaluation and started the preparation work for 2013.