Lotus cancels its test week in Barcelona

After impressing in Jerez fifteen days ago, the Lotus team is experiencing a brutal halt in Barcelona, where they decided to end their week of testing on the first day.

Indeed, after quickly detecting a “problem” on the E20-02 chassis prepared on Tuesday for Romain Grosjean, the team management decided to urgently return the implicated chassis to Enstone, prematurely ending his day, with the hope of returning to the track today with the E20-01 chassis, used in Jerez and which was to be delivered during the day. However, after the initial results of the investigations carried out in Enstone, the British team decided to simply cancel their week of testing in Barcelona and pack up: « Before sending the E20-01 chassis to Barcelona in replacement of the E20-02 chassis, we conducted a series of simulations at the factory, based on the data collected during the short amount of time we were able to run today. We identified what needed more work [and] it will be more productive for us to undertake these modifications on both chassis at Enstone rather than sending the E20-01 chassis for the rest of this week’s tests. We will take all necessary measures and will be able to have resolved the issue by next week. »

If Lotus chose not to elaborate further on the issue encountered with the 2012 car, Gary Anderson, technical consultant for the editorial team of Autosport, believes that the Barcelona circuit, different from that of Jerez, may have revealed the weaknesses of the E20 of Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean: « The aerodynamic load on the car is greater in Barcelona than in Jerez, which could explain why the problem hadn’t manifested until now. […] The fact that Lotus decided to forgo all tests for the week, rather than return to the factory to fix the problem and then come back at the end of the week, suggests that it’s a serious issue. »

For Gary Anderson, it could be a flaw in the engine mount and supports, in this case, Lotus’s decision to forgo running this week: « The engine specification and the position of the mounts have not changed since they still have the same engine, so I doubt it is a design error: there’s no point in revolutionizing things, so it’s likely that it hasn’t changed. […] This issue does not pose major safety problems, but if the car behaves oddly, as Romain Grosjean reports, then it’s only going to get worse. »

For his part, Eric Boullier, Team Principal of Lotus, believes he made the best choice by canceling this week’s tests: « Making the decision not to drive this week was difficult, but we feel we made the right choice. The positive aspect is that we quickly diagnosed the problem with the chassis, and our design office has already found the solution. We will be present in Barcelona next week. We draw our confidence from the fact that the Lotus E20 has quickly shown its pace in Jerez and proved reliable there. We have a lot of work ahead for next week, but everyone at Enstone is ready to meet the challenge. »