Mexico track exposes Lotus’s lack of downforce – Grosjean

2015 Mexican Grand Prix

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Romain Grosjean says the his car’s lack of downforce is being exposed by the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

The Lotus driver failed to reach Q3 for only the fourth time this year after repeatedly struggling in the final sector of the lap at the Mexico City circuit.

“We’re at a very high altitude, at a track with very low grip, requiring good downforce – which we know are not our strongest points – so we weren’t massively confident of our performance heading into qualifying,” Grosjean admitted.

“We did better than expected, even though we struggled to get the tyres to work.”

However Grosjean expects the race to provide chances for him to make progress.

“We still have a good opportunity tomorrow,” it’s a long race where everyone’s brakes and engines are likely to struggle. The start will be very important; we’ll try to use all our experience and make a decent result happen.”

2015 Mexican Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    6 comments on “Mexico track exposes Lotus’s lack of downforce – Grosjean”

    1. It’s not the aero, lotus has poor mechanical grip. Romain expected a good Monza because of spa but unlike SPA, Monza requires good braking stability and good mechanical grip for the chicanes, it doesn’t pay off just to have a slippery car. Lotus was the slowest Merc runner at Monza.

      1. You know this because you have driven the Lotus?

        1. @pastaman @raceprouk Well compare Lotus with Williams and SFI on slow tracks and you get the picture.

          1. Yes, because video footage is so much better than driving the car when it comes to knowing how it drives…

      2. I’m glad someone knows better than Grosjean; after all, he only drives the car

    2. Slow tracks comparisons? Ok, Monaco adds to your argument doesn’t it. High downforce aero layout always created headache for Enstone guys this year. In my opinion Williams has a very good aero and problematic mechanical grip. They even have working group within the team to establish cause of the issue. Lotus’ aero development was heavily hampered by multitude of problems they encountered this season. It’s a very good car in terms of mechanical grip. However, people tend to underestimate the influence of aero at ‘slow’ speed envelope. For me there is no slowness in F1 at all. They go 50mph at some track section and call it a slow section. Ok. Try to open a window of your car going at 50mph and stick a hand outside and tell me how slow is the flow ;-)

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