Allison: An unprecedented three-way development challenge

Charged with marshalling resources at Enstone, Technical Director James Allison discusses the race in Korea, prospects for India, and looks at what’s keeping him busy with four races of the 2012 season yet to go.

What are your conclusions after Korea?

We finished the race in our starting positions, which was solid if ultimately unspectacular. Kimi added more points to his tally and Romain achieved what we had asked of him by keeping his nose clean and bringing the car home to score valuable points for the team. We didn’t set the world alight, but we got both cars home in the points and were notably more competitive than in recent races in terms of the gap to pole position. Furthermore, over the course of the weekend we managed a successful implementation of our Coandă exhaust system as well as reacting to a front tyre graining issue that is a feature of the Korean circuit.

What’s your assessment of the Coandă system and will we see it in action again in India?

It was a solid debut for the Coandă system and we will see both Kimi and Romain using it in India. We were reasonably pleased with how it performed on its first outing. We knew that our first implementation would be a little power hungry, but we hoped for – and were delighted to register on the track – a good downforce boost. Our initial design was already a step forward relative to the previous system, but we expect more from this package as we modify the exhaust to recover much of the lost power.

What else can we expect to see on the car in India?

Romain used a new front wing in Korea which has proved to be a mild step forward and will be available to both drivers in India.

F1 has only been to India once before; how confident are you returning to the circuit?

Last year it was the track with the most important racing line in the world, with any deviation from that line punished pretty severely as the surface was very dirty. This year the circuit organisers have invested in impressive track cleaning equipment the likes of which we see in Bahrain, so matters should be somewhat different. We’ve learnt that it’s a pretty challenging circuit and a good test for both the car and driver with a bunch of nice corners. It’s a typical modern Formula 1 track and an interesting place to go racing.

Will development continue with the E20 and when does the focus move fully to next year’s car?

This question comes up a lot at the tail end of the season. In a normal year, the answer would be that the focus has pretty much shifted to next year’s car already. This is not a normal year though. Every team on the grid is facing the unprecedented challenge of working simultaneously on three cars. There are two principal reasons for this: Firstly, the rules for 2013 are relatively unchanged which – combined with the quite tight grid – means that there is still merit in developing the 2012 car even this late in the season. Secondly, the looming shadow of the 2014 regulations demands our attention. Anyone who followed the sport in 2009 will know that a large shake up in the regulations presents both opportunity and hazard which can significantly re-jig the traditional pecking order of the teams. The regulatory revolution for 2014 makes the 2009 changes look trivial by comparison. Choices have to be made with three babies competing for development food; do you put resources into the E20 and get as much out of it as possible or is it more prudent to make the most of what will be ‘the last hurrah’ for this generation of rules in 2013? Alternatively, is it right to focus more on the longer term future with the 2014 rules that will form the basis of the next generation of F1 cars? It’s a very finely balanced judgement and one that is a fascinating challenge. By the end of the 2014 season we should know if we made the correct decisions.