Chester: The Lotus E23 should go quite well in Austin

Technical Director Nick Chester explains that Romain will have a race-ready car in Austin as he previews the United States Grand Prix.

What are the main characteristics of the Circuit of the Americas?

The circuit has an interesting layout with a high speed sector one that has an interesting combination of high speed corners. Towards the end of the lap there are more slow speed corners and there is a reasonable back straight. It’s a track that is quite mixed; it is a good technical circuit and one that the drivers like.

Which downforce levels are required for the Circuit of the Americas? Tyre-wear?

The downforce levels are medium to high. We won’t be using maximum downforce as it would slow us down in the first sector and on the back straight. Regarding the tyres, we will have the medium and soft Pirelli compounds in Austin. The wear will be pretty standard – the tarmac is still relatively smooth - and we are probably expecting a race with two stops but no extreme tyre-wear.

The team has been successful in Austin in the past - will it suit the E23?

The E23 should go quite well in Austin. It has proved to perform at most tracks and I think that again it should suit the Circuit of the Americas quite well. Hopefully we can qualify in the top 10 and score a good haul of points.

Looking back at the team’s performance in Sochi, was our level of competitiveness expected?

Our prediction had been to be pretty competitive in Russia and Romain proved that by qualifying in eighth on Saturday, only a tenth off sixth on the grid. We thought that we would be pretty good around there. Pastor’s race pace on the soft tyre was reasonably good; on the other hand he wasn’t as strong on the super soft tyres. Overall the performance on track was solid, of course it is a shame that Romain had a difficult first lap and then a crash, otherwise he’d have been racing Sergio Perez.

Has the team shed light on what happened to Romain on Sunday / reasons of the high speed impact?

There is no indication in the data and in the parts that anything broke and subsequently caused the accident. It isn’t easy to draw conclusions in any accident investigation but it looks like Romain was maybe a little bit close to the McLaren and lost some downforce, running out of grip effectively. There is nothing that we can see that makes it a car failure.

What is the extent of the damage?

It is quite significant but still the car stood up well to the impact. The right hand side of the car suffered the damage – front and rear suspension right hand side, the nose, the rear wing, crash structure. We haven’t seen anything however that should stop us getting the car back together.

The cars won’t come back to Enstone until after the last race of the season…

That’s right, it’s a long haul for them! Any work that needs carrying out on the cars is done at the track now until Abu Dhabi; this means that the mechanics will be busy in Austin rebuilding Romain’s chassis.

Austin is a popular venue for the team…

Absolutely. It’s a great city with a lot going on. When the guys do get away from the track, they’ll enjoy some Texan food for sure. It’s a race with a great atmosphere. The fans are amazing and when they see team members, they ask about the racing with a genuine interest. It’s really nice.