[F1] Lotus F1 Racing

ONE YEAR IN THE LIFE OF LOTUS RACING

Hingham, UK 2nd September 2010

The Italian Grand Prix at Monza marks the last European race of the 2010 FIA Formula One™ World Championship. As the Lotus Racing team heads to Jarno Trulli’s home country, Jarno and a number of key team members take the time to look ahead to what promises to be another exciting race for the Anglo-Malaysian squad.

Mike Gascoyne, Lotus Racing Chief Technical Officer: “Looking back to last weekend, Spa was in many ways one of our best performance of the year so far. We have had better positions at the end of a number of races, but in terms of reliability, Spa was our strongest performance to date. Now we go to Monza and that’s always a special place to race – the Tifosi create an incredible atmosphere, and while it’s obviously focused on Ferrari, I think seeing Jarno and Heikki in our green and yellow cars will be pretty special for some of the most passionate motorsport fans in the world.

“Monza will also be very special for me, Tony, Din, Nasa, Riad and the whole team on a personal level. Race day is the 12th September, which is exactly one year to the day since we heard that our entry into the 2010 Formula One™ World Championship had been accepted. It’s hard to put into words just what that means to all of us, but it’s already been an incredible 365 days, and we have many more exciting times to come. I’ve been asked a number of times if I really thought we’d be able to do what looked to many like an impossible task – creating a team from literally just words on a piece of paper to now sitting 10th in the Championship, best of the new teams and with a very bright future ahead of us.

“Onto the track itself: Monza is unique as it’s now the lowest downforce circuit on the modern Formula One™ calendar. For the race weekend, we’ll have a revised low downforce package with new front and rear wings, plus a few other smaller modifications to the cars.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “After Spa I’m feeling really good physically and mentally. Before we got to Belgium, I had a proper rest for a week, and then got back into training for the second couple of weeks of the summer break to prepare myself for the end of the season. It paid off because I felt great all weekend in Spa and now I’m looking forward to Monza and then the remaining races. Monza is one of the real highlights of the year and it’ll be good to be back in Italy. It’s a very different type of circuit and it has a great atmosphere. Obviously Ferrari have huge support out in the stands, but so do the other teams as the fans just love F1™. I think it’ll be a pretty cool weekend – for us drivers it’s a high speed track and with the low downforce configuration it makes it very interesting to race there. For the fans it’s cool as well as the cars are pushed to the limit, and they look and sound pretty awesome on track.”

Jarno Trulli: “Monza is a very special Grand Prix. We Italian drivers have fantastic support out there, and the fans are really fired up for the race. It’s such a warm atmosphere, you can’t help but enjoy it. The track is challenging, but it’s not as technical as some of them. You obviously need good top speed, low downforce, good traction good braking stability. Everyone talks about the low downforce, but the brakes play a really crucial role. You need to have the confidence to brake as late as possible and as hard as possible at the chicanes, and then you need to have really good traction to get yourself out of them as quickly as possible. I think we saw in Spa that our car is pretty good at the quicker tracks, so I think we’ll be able to repeat our performance in Belgium – as long as we come out ahead of our nearest rivals we’ll be happy, and then we’ll be back in the air for the remaining races of 2010.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “I’ve had to watch the last few races on TV as other commitments have kept me away from the races, so it’ll be good to be back on track in Italy. The last couple of weeks have been very exciting for the whole team – we’ve seen Nabil Jeffri, a Malaysian superstar in the making, become the youngest ever driver to test an F1™ car at the aero test we ran on Wednesday, and it was a very proud moment for me to see him put in a great day’s work for us in what must have been a pretty stressful environment for such a young guy. He proves what I’ve always believed – work hard to achieve your dreams and they will come true. That’s the same for everyone in Lotus Racing – exactly one year ago on September 12th our Formula One™ dream came true, and now we’ll be competing at one of the world’s great race tracks, bringing the green and yellow cars back to where they belong, and I can’t wait to see the reaction of the crowds when we take to the track. Mike has already said what it means to him to see our cars racing hard just 12 months since we started work on this amazing team, and I echo his thoughts entirely. It has been an amzing journey already, but after Monza we’ll be heading back to Asia, and it’s going to keep getting more exciting with every step we take.”

Ends

Tony Fernandes : On my way to lotus. Havnt been there since february. Pre bahrian. Excited. Big decisions today. Also see our new house.

As those of you following him on twitter already know, Tony dropped by the office today - he called us all together and gave a fantastic speech on plans for the future and to say keep dreaming and keep believing! Always good to have the boss in Norfolk!

Lotus et Renault ont trouvé un accord. Reste à casser le contrat Cosworth

mardi 7 septembre 2010 - 13h30, par Franck Drui NEXTGEN

On vous en parlait il y a dix jours déjà mais les discussions entre Lotus et Renault se sont poursuivies concernant la fourniture du moteur français à l’équipe anglaise. Un accord technique et financier a même été trouvé entre les deux parties et il reste à Lotus de trouver le moyen de se dégager de son contrat de trois ans avec Cosworth.

Lotus était initialement à la recherche d’une nouvelle transmission et Renault n’a souhaité vendre sa boîte de vitesses à Lotus qu’avec la fourniture du package complet moteur/boîte. Concernant le circuit hydraulique fourni par Xtrac et qui a posé tant de soucis cette année, Lotus a également discuté avec Renault mais a finalement décidé de concevoir son propre système pour la saison prochaine.

Lotus a deux solutions pour quitter Cosworth : payer les deux ans de contrat qui lui restent à faire, soit un peu plus de 12 millions d’euros, soit entamer une collaboration pour les moteurs de ses voitures de série. Cependant il semble que de ce côté aussi, Renault et Lotus devraient annoncer une collaboration pour concevoir des moteurs communs pour leurs futures sportives, Lotus travaillant actuellement avec Toyota pour ses modèles Elise, Exige et Evora.

Nous en saurons certainement plus dans les jours ou semaines qui viennent puisque Mike Gascoyne a besoin de tous les éléments pour concevoir la future Lotus F1 de 2011.

leles a écrit:Lotus sera motorisée par Renault l’année prochaine si elle parvient à casser son contrat avec Cosworth, rapporte Autosport.

Toutes les nouvelles équipes, en plus de Williams, ont signé un contrat de trois ans avec le motoriste britannique. Lotus souhaite cependant mettre un terme à son engagement deux années plus tôt que prévu pour utiliser des moteurs Renault à compter de 2011.

Le contrat signé ne comporterait toutefois pas de clause de sortie. Lotus a donc besoin de l’autorisation de Cosworth pour mettre un terme à leur association et retrouver le moteur Renault pour la première fois depuis 1986. Le package ne s’arrêterait pas au moteur de Viry-Châtillon puisque l’accord comprendrait également la fourniture des boîtes de vitesses et de la transmission.

Il est fort à parier que si Lotus veut mettre un terme à son contrat, elle devra mettre la main au porte feuille pour convaincre Cosworth de la laisser partir.

ITALIAN GRAND PRIX FRIDAY PRACTICE
Monza, Italy 10th September 2010

Race day in Monza will be a year to the day since Lotus Racing received confirmation of their entry to the 2010 FIA Formula One™ World Championship. The team’s performance in today’s Free Practice sessions showed how far the team have come throughout the season, and reinforced their position at the head of the new teams. A good day’s work on track and in the garage saw Jarno Trulli on home turf finish in 19th, and Heikki Kovalainen 20th.

Jarno Trulli (Chassis T127-04) FP1: 12 laps, best time 1.26.898, 19th / FP2: 38 laps, best time 1.26.204, 19th “First of all it’s great to be back home for the first time with Lotus Racing. We’ve had a fantastic reception here, and even though Monza hasn’t been particularly lucky for me, it felt great to be out on track today. We started with a problem early on in FP1, but the guys did a great job in a very short time to change the parts which weren’t working properly. They put the car back together fast enough to give me some track time in the first session, so thanks to them for that. In FP2 we got through the whole programme – we were mainly looking at tyre evaluation and setup work, so having completed that it’s been a positive day. Obviously we’d like to pull away a bit more from the guys behind us, and I think with some more work tonight we’ll be looking good for tomorrow and Sunday.”

Heikki Kovalainen (Chassis T127-01) FP1: 14 laps, best time 1.27.374, 20th / FP2: 41 laps, best time 1.26.306, 20th “It was a pretty good day. We had a bit of an issue this morning, but were able to identify the problem quickly and we only lost a bit of time. This afternoon everything went to plan – we had no issues at all and the car feels good on both low and high fuel loads. It obviously moves around a bit more in the low downforce settings, but it’s the same for everyone and I think our top speed’s where it should be so I think we’re looking pretty good for the whole weekend.”

Jody Egginton, Chief Race Engineer: “Excellent job by the guys all day, particularly this morning. We did the installation laps and then decided to make a couple of precautionary changes which meant both crews had to work hard to make sure we could get some track time. They did a great job and turned both cars around, which meant we pretty much completed both Jarno and Heikki’s programmes in the morning. In FP2 we completed a lot of laps, put a lot of kilometres on the tyres and tried a couple of setup changes. We’ve got a lot of data to go through tonight, but we’re pretty satisfied with where we are. There’s obviously a bit of cat and mouse going on between us and our nearest rivals with wing levels and fuel loads, but we think we’re where we should be, and that means it’s been a pretty good day.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “It’s really good to be back with the team after a few races where I’ve been watching away from the track. We started out with a bit of pressure, having to make some changes early on in the session, but that’s what we’re about – trying something and not being afraid to do so. This afternoon we ran a good number of laps and generated a lot of useful data, and as both drivers were happy with the car it’s been a good day. It’s a good day to come back - sitting on the pitwall it suddenly clicked for me that we’re one year on since we received the letter from Max confirming our entry. We’ve talked about it a lot, but it’s real – we’re now 14 races into the Lotus Racing story, and we’re here to stay.”

Ends

omer1621 a écrit:Esperons que Lotus arrive à concrétiser le deal avec Renault...

Un peu hors sujet mais une pensée à Jochen Rindt qui s'est tué à Monza il y à 40 ans de cela, sur Lotus...

A BIG STEP FORWARD FOR LOTUS RACING
Monza, Italy 11th September 2010

Best of the new boys and both cars ahead of Liuzzi’s Force India means the Italian Grand Prix qualifying session will go down as a good day’s work for the Lotus Racing team. Both Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen’s times kept coming down throughout the session and it ended with Jarno starting tomorrow’s race in 18th and Heikki 19th.

Jarno Trulli (Chassis T127-04)
FP3: 14 laps, best time 1.25.788, 19th / QUALIFYING: 18th, 1.25.540, 10 laps

“It was a great qualifying session for the whole team today because both cars are in front of a Force India and it’s looking good for tomorrow. The mechanics sorted out a little problem on the car just before the session, and they’ve been working really well all weekend so it’s good to repay that with the result. It’s always good to be able to perform like this at your home race and being best of the new guys means it’s been a good day.”

Heikki Kovalainen (Chassis T127-01)
FP3: 16 laps, best time 1.25.925, 20th / QUALIFYING: 19th, 1.25.742, 11 laps

“I’m very happy with the performance today. It’s been a really good qualifying for both me and Jarno and we’re both in a good position for the race tomorrow. I had a great long run in yesterday’s practice and I’m looking forward to the race, perhaps more than most of the races this season. We’ve had a few races this season where we haven’t got the most out of the Friday sessions, but we did so yesterday, and that, combined with the promise of a dry race tomorrow and a very good race car, means I think we’ll put in a strong performance.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “It was an excellent qualifying session. I think we managed to get the most out of both cars today so well done to both drivers and the whole team. Overall I’m happy that we have the right level of wing for the race and after a trouble free session today we’re now looking forward to a solid two car finish tomorrow, ahead of our closest rivals.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “What an awesome qualifying session! I’m so happy today – what a great way to bring up our first year anniversary! I always felt this would be Jarno’s day, but that’s taking nothing away from Heikki who also did an immense job out there. We are 1.1 seconds off Pedro’s Sauber, and on a power track like Monza that is incredible. I’m so proud of the whole team – they have worked brilliantly all weekend, and it has paid off today with a great performance from everyone. Tomorrow is going to be special, but the goal remains the same – get both cars home and make sure we stay ahead of the other new teams.”

Ends

Lotus to adopt Team Lotus name
By Jonathan Noble Sunday, September 12th 2010, 12:15 GMT

Lotus will adopt the famous Team Lotus name from next year, AUTOSPORT has learned, in a deal that is set to be announced at the Singapore Grand Prix.

As the Hingham-based team closes in on finalising its plans for the next year - which include its engine situation and driver plans – sources close to the team have revealed that there will be a change of official team name too.

Rather than operate under the Lotus Racing banner as part of a tie-up with the car company, the team will switch to the Team Lotus moniker that it last raced with in F1.

It is understood that current Lotus owner Tony Fernandes purchased the rights to the name from its former owner David Hunt.

As well as the change of team name, AUTOSPORT understands that Lotus is still pushing hard on securing a switch to Renault for 2011 – even though it has a binding contract with Cosworth.

Discussions are ongoing between the two parties to see if there is room for an agreement that could see the Cosworth engine deal be terminated two years before its original cut-off point.

Sources suggest that Lotus is hoping to announce a majority of its future plans in Singapore in a fortnight's time, which could include its name, sponsors, drivers, engine and technical staff line-up.

SUTIL80 a écrit:tony fernandes sur twitter :

"jarno retired gearbox. oh well . making decisions easier "

Un changement de fournisseur de boîte en 2011