Q&A with Nick Chester (Lotus) before Interlagos

Fresh from the tough engineering questions asked in Mexico, Lotus F1 Team Technical Director Nick Chester directs his mind to Interlagos and the Brazilian Grand Prix as the penultimate outing for the E23 Hybrid.

Interlagos is quite an old-school track. What are the idiosyncrasies of it from an engineering perspective?

It is a tricky circuit to find the right set-up. The middle sector is very twisty with a lot of low speed turns and then the final sector which is essentially a long uphill corner on to a very long straight. You rely on strong engine power and delivery for the straight. You need a nice stable car for the twisty mid-section where a driver wants a strong turn-in without much understeer, and you want strong traction on exit after a balanced mid-section. The compromise on how to run on downforce is quite challenging. You want to take downforce off for the last sector but then want it on for the other sectors. We tend to rely on where the simulation suggests will be the best compromise. We normally don’t run on full downforce which is probably what we will do again this weekend.

From an engineering perspective, what was learnt in Mexico?

It was quite a big challenge. We knew before we went that the high altitude was going to give us a lot of obstacles to overcome – for instance we’d only have 70% of the downforce that we’d have at sea level, 70% of the drag and 70% of the cooling. Cooling was the biggest issue. We made bodywork changes and adapted the brake ducts. Fortunately everything worked as required so it was a good job done by the team in that regard. Seeing both cars pass the chequered flag was rewarding. It would have been nice to have been further up the order, but it was good to see validation of all the simulation work we’d done in advance of the event.

What lessons in particular were learnt for next time?

We have a lot of data from over the weekend so we’ll be better prepared for our return. Having both cars complete race distances is very useful here as we can compare, contrast and analyse performance better. Certainly we saw the track surface evolve a lot over the course of the weekend which allows us to make better calls for the future in terms of tyre usage.

Did you enjoy the race-long dice between Romain and Pastor?

I’m happy as long as they don’t touch! They were fair with each other and both cars finished so it was fine.

What are your thoughts on a potential ‘client engine’ to a different configuration to the existing regulations?

It’s quite a can of worms. A two-tier championship would be very difficult to operate. There would be so many different challenges for equalisation and this would be exceedingly difficult with engines of different characteristics.

How’s progress with next year’s car?

We’re well progressed through the design process and most of the layout has been done. We’ve learnt a lot over the past two seasons and all this knowledge is being put into next year’s car. There hasn’t been the greatest amount of development through the year on the E23, so we’ve been able to dedicate quite a bit of additional manpower to our 2016 challenger. Manufacture of some of the parts is already underway and we’re looking at a lot of the final detailing currently.