Q&A with James Allison (Lotus technical director) before Melbourne

Regulation changes and the rollercoaster ride of winter testing have kept Technical Director James Allison very busy. But in the E20, he sees a lot of potential

What were the main challenges of the 2012 regulations?

By far the most significant is the fact that we are no longer allowed the exhaust blown diffusers. That single feature really dominated last season on everybody’s car, and it was felt by the governing body and by the Teams that this avenue of development needed to be reined in. The 2012 rules still offer the opportunity to gain a residual downforce effect from the exhaust, but it is really very small in comparison to what we had in 2011. This means that the big challenge for 2012 was to re-invent the layout of the car without the exhaust blown effect which was so central to the 2011 designs.

How has it been working with Kimi Räikkönen?

I have to say he’s been an absolute pleasure to work with in testing. He was able to bang in a race distance from the first day he drove with us with absolutely no sign of physical exertion. It was immediately clear that he has returned to the sport very fit and extremely enthusiastic to succeed. He’s a real pleasure for his engineers to work with, giving very clear feedback in a civilised manner.

How has Romain stepped up to the challenge?

Romain is a young, fresh-faced talent. He showed in Jerez that he is capable of setting very respectable lap times. He clearly took on board all the feedback we gave him from that first test and applied everything when we were next out in Barcelona. It was a very pleasant surprise to have a driver so receptive to input and one who is able to react and apply the lessons so quickly and comprehensively.

Regarding the front suspension chassis mounting, how big a setback was it?

It was a proper setback; we lost four days of testing. The good thing is that our car was very reliable in the first test so the base of the car was already strong. This meant we didn’t really have great doubts about whether we could run lots of kilometres once the specific failure of the chassis was addressed. However, it was lost set-up time, a lost opportunity for our drivers to get more kilometres under their belts and lost opportunities for us to learn more about this year’s tyres. All of these were extremely unwelcome, but it was not a mortal blow.

How quickly were you able to solve the issue?

The diagnosis was very rapid. We had a redesign to solve the failure by the end of the day. The challenge then became managing the implementation of the repair sufficiently quickly to be ready for the second Barcelona test.

All the media focus was on the chassis issue, but have there been any other areas of concern in the testing of the E20?

We saw some minor water leaks in Jerez but we had a quick and easy fix for that – so it’s all better now. We had an issue with one particular power steering rack at the second Barcelona test, but other than that the car has been very good out of the box.

What are your thoughts on the 2012 tyres from Pirelli?

They seem to work well with the E20. We’ve been able to achieve reasonable lap times and seen good warm-up. The degradation looks like it will make for the kind of races which the public will enjoy; the tyres don’t destroy themselves so quickly that the race would become a meaningless blur of pit stops, but there is sufficient difference between the performance of the different compounds to make it an interesting racing spectacle.

Will the car in Australia be exactly as it was at the end of the Barcelona test?

We have the odd little tweaklet planned for Australia if you look closely.

A lot has been noted about the aesthetics of the stepped noses. What are your thoughts?

I’d agree it’s not a thing of great beauty, but you get used to it.

In terms of the potential of the E20, do you think you can challenge the top four?

That is our target and we believe we have a good shout at being able to do this. However, the precise order of the grid is notoriously hard to read from winter testing.