Despite an excellent power unit, plenty of downforce and two massively talented drivers, Lotus just can’t seem to catch a break this year.
And this is all true..unless you start comparing their current results with their results from last year when they were terrible. Now, they’re actually 5th in the Constructors Standings with 23 points.
But at the moment, it’s not the fact that they’re still 31 points behind Red Bull that bothers them the most, but the strange fact that after qualifying 5th and 6th for the Canadian GP last weekend, Maldonado and Grosjean finished the race P7 and P10 respectively.
And yes, that is a solid result for any team that isn’t called Mercedes, Ferrari or Williams this season, yet the fact remains..they were considerably faster during qualifying than they were during the race.
“It’s almost the opposite of normal,” said Lotus engineering chief Alan Permane. “We were a little surprised by how close we were in qualifying to be honest. Honestly, I don’t know. I expected to be a bit closer [in the race], but it became apparent very early on. It wasn’t anything to do with saving brakes, or tyres, or anything like that – we weren’t really saving fuel honestly.”
What’s more curious is the fact that Permane later stated they might never “really get to the bottom of it” – which seems unfathomable from a professional perspective.
He did however suggest that the reason for the E23’s lack of pace during the Canadian GP might have had something to do with a poor strategy.
“The degradation was very low – if that is one of our strengths, looking after our tyres in a low deg race, then that isn’t going to favour us.”
If that’s the case, it would mean that maybe Lotus had looked after their tires more than they should have, since generally they’re very good at managing those Pirellis.
Story references: autosport
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