The Lotus F1 Team (previously known as Renault F1 in another life) has confirmed that the problems with the E20 was related to the front suspension mounting points. The team hit trouble in Barcelona last week when Romain Grosjean reported a problem on his first flying run.
“We saw immediately that we had a problem with the mounting of the upper front wishbone rear arm,” said James Allison, the team’s technical director. “We were using chassis 02 for the first time, so our initial reaction was to consider the possibility of a manufacturing issue affecting that particular chassis. We made the decision to take chassis 01 – which had run successfully in Jerez – from the UK to Barcelona. Before we sent it, we launched an investigation programme at Enstone to ensure there was no risk of a similar issue. Unfortunately, our investigations concluded that there was a possibility of the same problem reoccurring. We then decided, quite reluctantly, to cancel the test and make the necessary changes to both our chassis before running again.
“It’s been an intense few days, but I have to say that everybody has completed their tasks in tremendous fashion. On the first day back at the factory, I spoke to the entire Enstone personnel and clearly explained what happened. Everybody understood that the situation was unfortunate, but under control. We designed the new parts, manufactured them, and fitted them to the chassis. We then completed the necessary tests satisfactorily and the chassis left for Spain.”
Allison says that the modified chassis is now 1kg heavier than it used to be.
“It won’t have any significant impact on handling or performance,” he added.
The team says that chassis 02 will remain as the spare from now on and that it will run chassis 01 in Barcelona. A second chassis (03) is now being completed.
“Missing four days of testing is not ideal,” Allison concluded. “We need mileage at this stage of the year, as does any other team. That said, there are reasons to remain optimistic. First of all, we completed many troublefree laps in Jerez and gained a good understanding of the car. Also, some of the small issues we identified in Jerez needed to be fixed, and the parts were not available last week. On Thursday, the car will run with all the required redesigned parts. We’re looking forward to being back on track.”
joeblogsf1 
In other words, they screwed up…
That is one way of putting it, if you choose to read it that way. You might also say that they pushed too close to the limit.
Lets hope the fix is permanent and Lotus get a good run this year. Joe, regarding Group Lotus and Proton, this blog entry from a blogger in Malaysia suggests that maybe a scandal regarding finances is maybe about to erupt, aka ‘the shit hitting the fan’ type of scenario. Maybe you already know whatever he is alluding too?
http://www.rockybru.com.my/2012/02/six-million-ringgit-man.html
1Kg of Carbon-fibre and resin sounds like quite a large lump of reinforcing to me. (by coincidence the sky F1 ad was just on tv with slow mo of last year’s Lotus (Renault) showing it’s wings flexing)
This type of problem on a Lotus is almost Chapmanesque!
how are the regulations – do they have to undergo new crashtests now with the chassis being modified?
No.
This is not good finding problems now at this stage, better now than in the race. Are things starting to slip? what do you think joe?
>This type of problem on a Lotus is almost Chapmanesque!
Like it. Funny, and oddly appealing. I’d like to think of Colin looking down and thinking, “well, at least they’re having a go.”
On a related note, did anyone else notice that as soon as the problem surface at the last test, this and other boards were full of sarcastic comments about the long history of terrible Lotus reliability? I wonder if those were the same people who didn’t think this was Lotus at all?
Reminds me of Nick Heidfeld’s Fireball Special car last year.
They do seem to push things to the limit.
Despite all the ownership issues, you have to respect the ex-Renault team. They push the envelope seemingly more so than other teams (perhaps other teams’ advantages are better hidden?). Sometimes it works for them and sometimes not. Glad to see that they keep trying though!
Nothing like a de-laminating chassis a couple of weeks before the first race…..
I KG those are some large flat Washers and lock nut’s required to patch things together, of to a flying start!
What’s with all the snarkiness? They had a problem, recognized it, and repaired it. That’s racing. I suspect they fixed it correctly, not with a Rube Goldberg fix as you suggest. There are lives at stake here, Andrew. By the way, it’s ‘off’ not ‘of’.
“What’s with all the snarkiness? They had a problem, recognized it”,
No there driver recognized it on track – big difference1 kg is a hell of a lot to be adding to the front end of an F1 car, especially up high where it will effect the centre of gravity & balance that much more. This is not a small oversight, at this level you cannot afford to make fundamental mistakes like that – that’s why they look foolish and will probably be looking for solutions instead of developing their car for the first few races – let the excuses begin
Right. The driver recognized it on track because the suspension hardpoint wasn’t strong enough and was pulling out under braking loads; there was no way to see this before it happened. ‘They’ happens to include the driver. Yes, it’s too bad they had to add 1kg to the car, but perhaps it was 1kg that was saved by some mew layup technique, or some attempt to use a light weight foam filler for the hardpoints, instead of titanium inserts. Who knows? Frankly, 1 kg added back in that location probably won’t make that much difference in the c.g. height or fore/aft location; if you are interested, it isn’t too difficult to do some quick calculations and see what the effect might be.
Perhaps they went back and reinforced all the suspension and engine mount points; if so there would be even less effect. I’m curious, have you ever raced single seaters? I’ve raced Atlantic cars and ran a race prep shop for four years and have been employed in the composite side of aerospace. I know from personal experience how problems crop up and how you react to them. Lotus was exactly right in their response to this problem. As you know, the chassis affected (#2) is going to become the spare; a new chassis is being laid up incorporating the fix from first principles. It’s too bad they lost track time, but as I said in my post above, things like this are potentially life threatening so they have to get it right.
I agree with Andrew. 1kg is a hell lot of carbon and resin to fix a weak pick up point (mounting). 1kg seems more like a ‘screw up’ than ‘pushing too close to the limit’
“Proton’s turnaround plan for Lotus hits snag”
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/3/2/business/10838107&sec=business