Zitat Kimi Raikkonen: “We’re not in first place so we can’t be happy…”
Kimi Raikkonen is determined to have a better weekend than in Monaco than he enjoyed last year, when he lost practice time after changing the steering and struggled to get up to speed.
Monaco is also the last weekend with the current tyres, which have proved favourable to Lotus.
“Well, we’re not in first place so we can’t be too happy,” he said of his season so far. “For sure it’s not a nightmare, but we’ve still got a lot of races yet to come and anything can happen in Formula 1. Monaco’s a different challenge, so we’ll have to see what happens there this year.
“We certainly won’t make the mistakes we made last time. There were a few things we didn’t do right over the weekend and we suffered because of that. Sometimes that’s the way it goes, but the important thing is not to make the same mistakes again.
“It’s such a narrow, twisty track; you have to be extra sharp and focused through every single metre. It gives such a good feeling; a fast lap around Monaco. Overtaking is almost impossible, so to really enjoy racing there you have to be in the front.”
Inevitably Kimi says that qualifying is the key.
“We have to focus on qualifying. It’s a difficult place to race as it’s so narrow and – as I said before – passing is nearly impossible. I was stuck behind Rubens [Barrichello] in 2009 and we had KERS then, but you just couldn’t get past.
“We’ll have to see how the tyres perform and if there are any good strategies to be made, but the most important thing is to qualify well. It’s difficult to know how good the car will be in Monaco as you can’t simulate its characteristics; certainly not at any of the circuits we’ve visited so far this year anyway. We can say the E21’s been fast everywhere else so let’s hope it’s also fast there.
“We’ll do the best we can, but of course everyone will be trying to be on the front row. It’s not impossible for us, but we won’t know how good we are until we get there. We know that tyre changes have to be made so there are opportunities if you run a different strategy to your rivals, but it’s certainly more difficult here than anywhere else.”
Zitat von WHATEVERWeren't ALL the teams supposed to agree on a change in order for Pirelli to be allowed to do so?
And how come the FIA allows changes in order to benefit just one or two teams?
And this also shows how Red Bull is like Ferrari. They have such power in F1, that they can do as they please
I read it somewhere that because there is no Concorde agreement in place so the teams can't really do much about it.
I don't really think it's just because RB or Mercede or fans complain, I guess those tyre failures could be a real concern for Pirelli. Can you imagine what would be the consequence if something serious happened (people injured or ...) due to tyre failure ?
ZitatLotus confident in qualifying pace ESPN Staff May 17, 2013
Trackside operations director Alan Permane believes Lotus has made clear improvements with its qualifying pace this season.
One of Lotus' weaknesses throughout 2012 was an inability to qualify high enough up the grid to challenge for race victories on a consistent basis. This season, Kimi Raikkonen won the first race of the year in Australia and started on the front row in China, while he was second in Barcelona last weekend having started fourth.
Permane said the team had worked hard at getting more from the tyres over one lap and had seen clear progress in Spain.
"It's no secret that this is an area we've been looking to improve and we haven't done a bad job in this regard," Permane said. "We took a front row slot in China and - disregarding Mercedes - we were less than a tenth from the front runner in Spain.
"I wouldn't go as far as to say our qualifying pace is perfect as it's clear there are still gains to be made, but we've certainly made significant inroads into understanding how to get the most out of the tyres over a single lap, in addition to balancing setup for both qualifying and race pace."
Permane also revealed there would be new parts for Lotus in Monte Carlo.
"Similar to Barcelona, we will be bringing a new rear wing which follows the same concept as the one we ran in Monaco last year. There will also be a new front wing and some modifications to the floor, so plenty to keep us occupied. We're confident in the upgrade package for this race and the car has worked well at every circuit so far this season, so there's no reason it won't be strong here."
Zitat von WHATEVERWeren't ALL the teams supposed to agree on a change in order for Pirelli to be allowed to do so?
And how come the FIA allows changes in order to benefit just one or two teams?
And this also shows how Red Bull is like Ferrari. They have such power in F1, that they can do as they please
I read it somewhere that because there is no Concorde agreement in place so the teams can't really do much about it.
I don't really think it's just because RB or Mercede or fans complain, I guess those tyre failures could be a real concern for Pirelli. Can you imagine what would be the consequence if something serious happened (people injured or ...) due to tyre failure ?
truth is i thought many times for a possible failure at a possibly really dangerous combination of circumstances too, its a parameter we cant ignore...its just that there have been so many politics in f1, its hard not to be suspicious... " title="dunno" />
No matter what they do, people already suspicious... some people said the reason Lotus is so good at the tyres is because Pirelli used Renault car for testing so Lotus has the unfair advantage, and because Pirelli is Italian company so they have some secret tie with Ferrari... now suddenly they make changes just to please RB and Mercede...one can never win I guess...
ZitatCIO Interview: Graeme Hackland, CIO, Lotus F1 Team Cliff Saran Friday 10 May 2013 13:24
Graeme Hackland, CIO of Lotus F1, has been working for the race car team for 16 years and has seen major changes in the way IT is used both on and off the track.
He started as network engineer and moved up to an IT infrastructure manager role when the team was taken over by Renault.
The team’s head office is in Oxfordshire where Hackland now spends much of his time.
He says: “Early on, I used to support the guys at the track. But these days there are restrictions.”
Hackland is responsible for the provision of application and infrastructure to support the IT needed for the race team including design, manufacturing, the wind tunnel systems and the supercomputer which runs complex fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for optimising the cars' aerodynamics. He is also responsible for security and is a member of the senior management team.
He recalls: “When I joined the team, we mainly ran big Unix system for CAD [computer aided design], and we’d take the Unix workstations to the races. We had five laptops on track and green terminals in the factory.”
Leading the adoption of technology But F1 is highly technical. So while this setup looks primitive by today’s standards, in his experience of the sport: “F1 is always leading the adoption of IT technology.”
He admits he is not a big fan of big data, but success at F1 is all about high speed data analysis.
Data from the car used to fit on a single floppy disk. F1 cars now produce gigabytes of data.
“I don’t like the term big data because it causes confusion. For us the big data challenge is in using multiple data sets, such as data from aerodynamics and CAD, to create performance from the car,” he says.
Such analysis is not restricted to the race track.
“I see a lot of similarities in real time data analysis in financial services. When you are on the track you will have, at most, 90 seconds to make a decision, based on analysing hundreds of parameters,” Hackland says. These cover everything from tyre pressure, the state of the weather, to the position of rival teams, and their tyre strategies.
The team is using Microsoft Dynamics to replace siloed systems to deliver an end-to-end view of the manufacturing process. He uses IT consultancy Avanade for software development and testing. Software is built using a service oriented architecture (SOA) with Microsoft.net.
Lotus F1 does use some off-the-shelf software, like Dynamics, but where there is a competitive advantage, it uses bespoke systems.
“If we see there’s a competitive advantage such as in CFD, the wind tunnel and statistical analysis, we write the software ourselves,” says Hackland.
It is focusing part of its development efforts in a system for improving data analysis.
Avanade is developing the system, called Strategy, which combines engineering and data with Microsoft Dynamics. The Strategy system is a statistical engine that takes race information, engineering and simulation data, to enable the team to make continual improvements to the car and the race strategy.
The system will enable Lotus F1 to get an end-to-end view covering PLM (product lifecycle management), ERP (enterprise resource planning) and the race performance application.
Streamlining analysis Hackland plans to link CAD and Microsoft Dynamics. This would help Lotus F1 streamline analysis of the car’s performance with engineering data.
“Today it is very manual and it take a few days to bring all the data altogether,” he explains. Linking Dynamics with CAD would speed up data analysis.
Hackland says a race team can win a single race without such data analysis, but winning the F1 championship requires software like Strategy to help the team build a better car over the season.
But the Strategy software will become more important in the 2014 season.
Hackland says: “Strategy software will be critical next season due to changes in regulations, such as the use of 1.6 turbo engines.
“It won’t be so easy to look at the previous season’s data. We’re almost baselining at zero again."
He adds: “We look at hundreds of parameters, including what competitors are doing. A subset of data is over the radio from the car in real time.
"We monitor alarms like a puncture. The strategy system uses this data to run a race simulation every three minutes.”
Given that a F1 car does not carry enough fuel to run at full throttle to the end of the race, Hackland says: “We need to analyse how we will get to the end of race.”
Strategy leads to victory In Australia, he says the race strategy helped Kimi Räikkönen win the race. “We have been very good at managing tyres. Kimi did two pitstops, rather than three,” says Hackland.
Much of the analysis is run real time at the trackside. However Hackland says Lotus F1 is now building a dedicated room at its head office where people can work with real time data from the factory.
This would have been impossible a few years ago given the state of UK broadband.
He says: “We are in the middle of the English countryside and there is no industry around. In the past, getting communications was difficult.
"But we now a dedicated 10 Mbps link with high availability.”
The reliability of the connectivity means Hackland is giving serious consideration to using cloud services.
“We are started with putting the obvious things in the cloud like email and CRM [customer relationship management] – but we can see huge potential benefits in terms of racing team logistics.
After each race all the IT equipment is packed up and shipped back to Oxfordshire, before being sent to the next race. It is not possible to update software while the equipment is in transit, which means Hackland only has a day to configure the systems before the race preparation starts.
He says: “We cannot do application updates until the Wednesday before the race. It would be much better if we could pull this back to earlier in the week.”
Cloud computing could facilitate this.
That said, he admits that everything trackside needs to run standalone, just in case the global communication link fails.
or is it something like this? ....only? " title="dunno" />
Zitat May 26, 2013 · 9:25 am
Renault finally confirms Toro Rosso deal
Renault confirmed today the not unexpected news that Toro Rosso will join Red Bull Racing as a power unit partner of the French company from 2014 onwards.
The deal has been expected for some time as it obviously allows the teams to share gearboxes and other technology, which will represent a cost saving.
In announcing it Renault boss Carlos Ghosn said that he wanted a minimum of three teams and that confirmation of the third – obviously Caterham – is expected soon. However he added that there could be up to five customers. He also said the engines would continue to be badged as Renaults, despite Infiniti’s high profile in the RBR camp.
“Weare very glad that the new technology is starting next year,” said Ghosn. “It’s a technology with a lot of overlaps with the usual cars that we are putting on the market. We have been a supporter of the new power unit because we see a way to justify all the technology development and let the cars of every day benefit from what’s taking place, and particular let F1 benefit from some of the developments we’re doing in terms of electrification of the engine.”
STR’s Franz Tost said: “We are very pleased to have reached an agreement to use Renault power units from the 2014 season onwards, when the new regulations will present interesting challenges. It is particularly important that we have managed to finalise our plans early, so that we can be as well prepared as possible for next year.
“While looking forward to working with Renault, I would also like to thank Ferrari, our engine supplier since 2007. They have provided us with an extremely effective and reliable engine and an excellent service.
Christian Horner added: “Strategically for Red Bull and Renault, it makes perfect sense for Scuderia Toro Rosso to use the same power unit as Infiniti Red Bull Racing from the 2014 season, which enables synergies between Red Bull and Renault to continue to grow.”
Zitat Lotus F1’s £56m loss is motorsport’s biggest The Lotus Formula One team last year recorded the biggest loss of any outfit in motorsport history, according to its latest accounts.
By Christian Sylt
9:30PM BST 26 May 2013
They reveal that in the year ending December 31 2012, the Oxfordshire-based team made a £56.8m after-tax loss due to reversing sponsorship revenues. Its net loss widened by £35.9m as revenue fell 19.8pc to £92.7m.
No other F1 team filing publicly-available accounts has ever lost as much money. The closest is the £46.3m after-tax loss made in 2011 by Marussia, a team which was part-owned by Lloyds Banking Group until earlier this year. The Lotus accounts state that the drop in income was “mainly due to lower sponsorship revenues”.
It is understood that this was driven by Lotus Cars cutting its sponsorship of the team in 2012, even though it still carries its name.
The team is owned by private equity firm Genii Capital, which was founded by Gerard Lopez, an early investor in Skype.
In 2012 the bulk of the loss was covered by a £42.2m group loan which is due to be repaid by the end of the year. Proton, the Malaysian manufacturer which owns Lotus Cars, also gave the team an estimated £35m loan which is secured on its factory. This left the team with net debt of £79.8m and drove its shareholders’ deficit to £54.2m.
Mr Lopez recently admitted that Genii had sold a 2pc stake in Lotus F1 to property tycoon Andrew Ruhan, who joined the board of the team in February.
He isn’t the only new arrival. During 2012 the team hired 20 staff, giving it a total of 520. Lotus also took on former F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen and, according to the accounts, higher payments to drivers fuelled a 9.1pc rise in costs to £146.6m.
Raikkonen made an immediate impact and the team finished fourth in the 2012 standings, up from fifth the previous year.
However, a question mark hangs over his future as he recently revealed that his contract with Lotus expires at the end of the year and has not yet been renewed.
Maybe that's the main reason why Allison left. Looks like their finances are really in bad shape. " title="sad" /> Will Kimi stay or go? " title="hmm" />
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