Blown diffusers essential in Singapore

Ricardo Penteado, the Renault Sport F1’s team support leader for Lotus Renault GP, answers a few questions on the Singapore Marina Bay Circuit.

Ricardo, what characteristics do you require from the engine round the Singapore Marina Bay Circuit ?

After two power tracks we go back to the relatively low speeds of a street track and the Singapore Marina Bay circuit. As a street track with 23 tight corners the car requires a high downforce set up to give traction and grip. Seventeen of those corners are taken in either first, second or third gear so we need to work on creating engine maps that give driveability into and out of all those corners so the driver can concentrate on his line without the car sliding around or the engine taking time to pick up.

With high level downforce settings, will the use of off-throttle gases be important here ?

In Singapore the use of off throttle exhaust gases will be very important to sustain downforce. With the aerodynamics engaged throughout the lap, grip levels should remain more constant, allowing the driver to maximise corner entrance and exit speeds. This could give extra tenths of a second so we will pay careful attention to this in Singapore.

How do you go about creating these maps ?

An engine map is a bit like a menu ; you choose the settings and then how you can put them together to give the engine certain characteristics. First we get data from the chassis team on the set up they want to run and their predicted speeds based on this set up. We then take the data from the predicted highest speed seen on track, in Singapore this is just before corner 7, and the lowest expected speed and calculate the most effective maps and gear ratios. We’ll then simulate these maps on a test engine in the dyno in Viry and validate on track during Friday practice.

Will the driver have any input ?

The driver will also give feedback ; last year in Singapore Robert [Kubica] said he needed less aggressive pick-up through turns 7, 8, 13 and 14 so we tweaked the engine settings and ratios to give him increased traction through those sections. It is an iterative process ; the more you test, the more you refine the maps.