143 replies to this topic

[fololo]

If u looked the Race Today , Lotus was the fastest car on the Grid.


In The beginning where Grosjean could drive without blocking he was much faster than Alonso and Webber and Vettel. In the End Raikönnen showed a awesome Pace. Massa was faster than Vettel but Raikönnen was alot quicker than both of them...



If u watched the last Races , Lotus have the best Race Pace so far, but why they cant win? Is it because of the bad luck ???

[Pitlane]

Because in F1 its not enough to be fast over a lap, over a stint, or even a race, you have to pull it together for the whole race weekend including qualification.

[Vesuvius]

it's because the qualifyings and the weekend as a whole hasn't gone as well as they should have. like Kimi has said there is no bad luck, only work done badly.

[fatd]

Qualifying, pit stops, strategies.
At least one of them goes wrong each weekend. They haven't pull it altogether. Yet (hopefully).

Edited by fatd, 08 July 2012 - 15:41.

[blackonyx4]

They lack both the qualifying speed and the top speed in the races.

[blackonyx4]

this season is highly competitive with 4/5 teams all capable of winning where drivers are making a bigger contribution then prior season. Kubica was one of the best drivers on the grid/ top 3. ..I think he would've been the only other drivers who could have compete neck to neck with Alonso Vettel and Lewis.

For all we know, he could be nowhere on Pirelli's as well.

[Fastcake]

Because they haven't been good enough to win.

[Vesuvius]

if you want to go that route. Kimi is no better than Massa and Alonso is trashing Massa now..

no need to go that way...

but

Massa is not the same driver as he was back then

[ZooL]

They don;t have the drivers.

Grojean keeps binning it every now and again, like he was doing at Renault, fast but can't keep it on the track.

Kimi - he's a shadow of his former self, which was evident at Ferrari when they payed him to leave F1.

[Wander]

I rate Kubica high, but see no evidence to suggest that he was any better than Kimi so that talk is useless.

As somebody already said, Lotus have not been able to get the whole weekend just right, instead they've struggled especially in qualifying and that's why they have not won a race so far.

Kimi - he's a shadow of his former self, which was evident at Ferrari when they payed him to leave F1.

Bullshit.

Edited by Wander, 08 July 2012 - 15:49.

[bub]

They can.

They haven't because there are other excellent driver/team combinations out there.

[topical]

Because they have two competent but not first rate drivers (Alonso's number 2 and Massa's number 2). That makes all the difference.

Edited by topical, 08 July 2012 - 15:50.

[iotar]

Australia: McLaren the best, RB second, they were behind after missing one Barcelona test
Malaysia: wet race, McLaren still the best overall
China: not their track, very good DRS-f-duct aided Mercedes on the long straight circuit
Bahrain: strong RB, Raikkonen can't overtake , not quick enough in qualifying (but it worked to their advantage)
Barcelona: Grosjean's missed FP3 , sub-par qualifying, slower than expected pace on softs (wrong choice?), wing damage on the first stint by RG
Monaco: not the fastest car in Q3 on options, RB and Mercedes strong, not the best second lap in Q3 by RG, race: accident but it was impossible to win from fifth anyway
Canada: not their track, set up problems (?)start-stop, second was v. good result, some very fast cars,
Valencia: closest to winning, alternator problem but RB was dominant anyway,
Silverstone: Wet qualifying? Grosjean's spin in Q2? RB and Ferrari? Hard to say.

So to summarize: no Kubica

[rolf123]

They're a bit like Ferrari in many ways, they have a car that is consistently pretty good at most circuits but not spectacular at any of them. If you think about it, the only reason Ferrari have any wins at all is due to Alonso. Put someone even a little lesser in the car and they would not have won anything.

Many of the other wins so far have been in cars that were dominant at that circuit but not so consistently elsewhere.

[DutchQuicksilver]

Clearly it's a case of qualifying form combined with bad starts and fuel amounts. It's pretty clear the Lotus gets better when the fuel levels drop, but unfortunately for them, when it's towards the end of the race, their cars are too far behind the leader(s).

[Disgrace]

My opinion is that the car has only been the best at one track, Bahrain, and Kimi could not make the move on Vettel in time. Even then, he was too far back in qualifying. They haven't had a flawless weekend yet.

[flyer121]

Kubica got injured..

Not sure thats the real reason...
... Problemis that the lotus has a narrow range of operation and other teams are better overall.

Edited by flyer121, 08 July 2012 - 15:59.

[andysaint]

After a couple of years out, I've been impressed with Kimi. He has been racking up the points and after a year of getting back into the swing of it, I think he will be extremely strong next year if he is given the car.

Grojean is also doing well for his first full season. Considering a lot of problems teams have had in getting the tires together, I commend Lotus for getting a lot of decent point scoring results for both drivers. Certainly better than Mercedes and Ferrari with Massa and Mclaren with Button. I do hope they win a race this year and I think they have the capability to do so. Plenty of races to go and points to be sought.

[Jake360]

Dumb thread. Lotus can win and i'm sure they will.

[Disgrace]

After a couple of years out, I've been impressed with Kimi. He has been racking up the points and after a year of getting back into the swing of it, I think he will be extremely strong next year if he is given the car.

Grojean is also doing well for his first full season. Considering a lot of problems teams have had in getting the tires together, I commend Lotus for getting a lot of decent point scoring results for both drivers. Certainly better than Mercedes and Ferrari with Massa and Mclaren with Button. I do hope they win a race this year and I think they have the capability to do so. Plenty of races to go and points to be sought.

Good post. I would add the car is also a jack of all trades, master of none. Always competitive but no distinct advantage, other than perhaps at traction circuits like Bahrain was.

[Wander]

A lot of psychics around here who can see into alternative time lines going on in parallel universes, I see.

[discover23]

After a couple of years out, I've been impressed with Kimi. He has been racking up the points and after a year of getting back into the swing of it, I think he will be extremely strong next year if he is given the car.

that's the point, he's been away for 2 years so we can't expect him to be at the same level as drivers like Alonso and Vettel since race 1 and Grosean is very fast but he is not consistent..
Lotus overall has been the most consistent car on race pace..

[Lights]

Their qualifying pace vs. racepace difference is mindboggling. Each race I think, they're gonna be really strong the next weekend, only for them to see them nowhere in qualifying. It hurts them. Quite sure it could've been a winner already though with other drivers. Kimi should've won Bahrain but he messed up on several levels.

[flyer121]

no need to go that way...

but

Massa is not the same driver as he was back then

And yet he showed Alonso up today finishing only 5 secs behind despite starting 4 places back.

[NotSoSilentBob]

For all we know, he could be nowhere on Pirelli's as well.

This. He could have struggled as much as Webber did last year for all we know.

Kubica's a has been, who never will be again. Let's stop bringing him up and just let him sit back and enjoy his millions in enforced retirement.

[SirRacer]

And yet he showed Alonso up today finishing only 5 secs behind despite starting 4 places back.

This.

Massa has been the same, the car was just crap and Alonso was taking everything out of it while Massa couldn't. Much like what is happening to McLaren now or what happened with Vettel and RedBull (to a lesser extent) in the start of the season

[iotar]

Because they have two competent but not first rate drivers (Alonso's number 2 and Massa's number 2). That makes all the difference.

Alonso had the best car in 2007 and couldn't win against the rookie
Vettel had a dominant car in 2010 and made every mistake possible
Raikkonen, Massa and Hamilton in 2007-2008 had many races full of all kinds of blunders with cars that were clearly ahead of the rest
Hamilton had comedy of errors streak of races last season in the clearly second best car
Alonso in 2010 in the second best car had fall starts, crashes and poor performances
Vettel, Alonso, Button didn't qualify for the top ten this season
Button has his problems
Rosberg can't out-qualify ancient Schumacher
Schumacher crashes or can't qualify well
Webber can't have a good start to save his life
Vettel is slow in qualifying in 5 out of nine races, crashes into HRT in Malaysia, can't win without the dominant car and gets out qualified and out raced by 34 year old team-mate.
Massa - is not the same driver since his accident, oh wait...
I can go on and on like that if you want

The field is very tight and nothing's as straightforward as it used be. It's just another step: if you can't criticize the team you criticize drivers. Raikkonen's comeback is all right and Grosjean when he's on the track is driving at times as well as any driver in F1. His last three races were excellent (with the exception of spin in Silverstone). In eights races he's got more impressive overtakes than Vettel during his whole career in dominant cars. he's been in the Q3 every time, only driver apart from Hamilton. If you're not impressed with him recently you should try watching F1 more and write here less.

[andysaint]

Good post. I would add the car is also a jack of all trades, master of none. Always competitive but no distinct advantage, other than perhaps at traction circuits like Bahrain was.

and in a season like this, they will hopefully find themselves in a very good position at the end. As Williams have found out, a win can be obtained but staying consistent over a whole season is perhaps more difficult.

[PretentiousBread]

It's obviously a qualifying issue, plus Kimi simply is not getting the most out of the car tbh.

[ruby soho]

Kimi was very fast today. Unfortunate start made him lose a couple of places, althought Kimi was driving very bravely, they seemed to lose postions during pit stops as well.

[Man of the race]

I would rather ask why they have had so strong performances and podiums this year.

Perhaps the whole package works better this year and people should give the whole team, both engineers and drivers some credit for that.

[Torsion]

I am not sure whether a win was possible today, but I certainly feel that we lack heavily in the strategy dept. especially, compared to RedBull who seem to have similar pace as us. They are always trying to be proactive and it pays off, whereas we are pretty reactive, and always seem to loose out. For example, I feel if we pitted early with minimum laps on the soft tire, when Kimi was behind MS, he would have had a much better race. As we saw, the hard tire was good for quite a distance, so by Romain pitting early, I think it was a blessing in disguise, given of cos that he drover a fab race.

[andysaint]

I would rather ask why they have had so strong performances and podiums this year.

Perhaps the whole package works better this year and people should give the whole team, both engineers and drivers some credit for that.

Quite agree, there have been a lot of changes recently, some politics away from the track and new ownership (or sponsors I don't really understand the Lotus v Group Lotus thing). So hopefully they can get some continuity and keep on making progress.

[FenderJaguar]

the car hasn't been at it's best in qualifying and they have failed with the strategy sometimes. in fact - where the Lotus have been fast is often during the end of the races and maybe not through all of the race.
i think Raikkonen could have won in Bahrain and Barcelona if they had got the strategy slightly better. i think Romain had a good chance in Valencia. even today if they had pitted Raikkonen earlier and been able to come out ahead of Vettel this race could have been different.

but I think they are getting closer.

Edited by FenderJaguar, 08 July 2012 - 16:33.

[FenderJaguar]

I would rather ask why they have had so strong performances and podiums this year.

Perhaps the whole package works better this year and people should give the whole team, both engineers and drivers some credit for that.

and this

[blackonyx4]

I am not sure whether a win was possible today, but I certainly feel that we lack heavily in the strategy dept. especially, compared to RedBull who seem to have similar pace as us. They are always trying to be proactive and it pays off, whereas we are pretty reactive, and always seem to loose out. For example, I feel if we pitted early with minimum laps on the soft tire, when Kimi was behind MS, he would have had a much better race. As we saw, the hard tire was good for quite a distance, so by Romain pitting early, I think it was a blessing in disguise, given of cos that he drover a fab race.

But Grosjean is actually great in this "reactive" strategies. When an opponents in front pits he is able to string fastest lap after fastest lap on old tyres. Undercutting is rarely working this year.

[keiichi]

I am not sure whether a win was possible today, but I certainly feel that we lack heavily in the strategy dept. especially, compared to RedBull who seem to have similar pace as us. They are always trying to be proactive and it pays off, whereas we are pretty reactive, and always seem to loose out. For example, I feel if we pitted early with minimum laps on the soft tire, when Kimi was behind MS, he would have had a much better race. As we saw, the hard tire was good for quite a distance, so by Romain pitting early, I think it was a blessing in disguise, given of cos that he drover a fab race.

I think you're totally right. All in all the whole team needs some fine tuning:

- They need to be better on strategy
- Even though the car is evolving and is no longer only fast in hot weather, it still needs to improve in quali and in the first half of the race.
- The drivers in my opinion are doing a pretty good job, but still Grosjean needs to be involved in accidents less often (although some of them were not his fault), and Raikkonen might still not be completely on top of his form.

I guess in general, nothing is severely wrong with the team, but there are still little things here and there that can be improved, wich in my opinion will happen sooner than later, and then the win(s) will come.

[2ms]

They can't win because the simply aren't well enough organized. They have big errors and mishaps every single weekend. This weekend Kimi's KERs was out of order during qualifying and they were so stupid in their tire strategy that their only driver in Q3 only kinda sorta got one lap (not fully up to temperature) on the intermediates.

They have at least one stupid thing or another every weekend. Their car design department is head and shoulders above their management, strategy, and organization. I think a team principal with some actual experience in F1 would likely be the first thing they need to obtain if they ever want to start winning. This is not going to be changing any time soon and I do not expect them to win this season. It takes a lot more than a good car and drivers to win in F1.

[iotar]

did anyone say that?
Raikkonen could have won Bahrain or Barcelona with a slightly more aggressive strategy. Romain might have had a chance in Valencia.

As someone wrote - there should be more credit given to this year's team with everyone working better together and getting great results and podiums. It is never easy.

Yes, post I quoted had this claim. That's why I asked.

Leaving aside poor Alonso, who in posters' imagination is driving and winning races in every second car on the grid this season: Sauber, Lotus, Caterham. Well, wait, this leads to interesting paradox. What if Alonso was driving Lotus AND Ferrari in Valencia. So would Lotus Alonso have gained big advantage before the safety car, or would Lotus Alonso (in place of Raikkonen) have prevented overtaking after slow pitstop? Or even more interesting conundrum: would Ferrari Alonso have overtaken Lotus Alonso on tyres with warming issues after SC? Even knowing his/his own tricks? Would Sauber Alonos have caught Ferrari in Malaysia or would have they used team orders? What if Hitler was alive in Brazil and cloning himself?

So leaving aside poor multiple Alonso, where is the guarantee that other top drivers in place of RG or KR would bring their A game at the crucial moment of rare single win opportunity? Where's guarantee the Hamilton would have blitzed past Vettel in Bahrain. Maybe it would have been the day of missed opportunities and mistakes for them, too? I'm not saying current drivers are perfect and take every opportunity but it's oversimplification to claim that Lotus is the best and Alonso would be winning races left, right and centre. Hello Jacques.

[DaddyCool]

>skipping a winter test due to a chassis problem
>RRHS banned after being declared legal
>2 new drivers, one who was on a 2-year F1 hiatus, and the other with relatively small F1 experience

Still, they have been podium contenders in almost every race, and they are matching Mac and Ferrari in the WCC.

Yeah, this team and its drivers really do suck...

[Baddoer]

They are not get used to be top team (05-06 were light years ago). Williams and Sauber have same curse, but even worse.

Edited by Baddoer, 08 July 2012 - 17:35.

[tarmac]

Winning outside qualification top 3 is pretty damn hard in normal race.. so fix quali.

Lets pretend they try to win outside front row. Things they need to fix to even have a chance:

losing positions to people like maldonado at start
Pitstops are slower then top teams costing few seconds every race
Strategy calls are worse than top teams (Räikkönen pitting 3 laps after Vettel was horrible horrible call) costing track positions and huge amounts of time. Cant jump anyone on pits

Edited by tarmac, 08 July 2012 - 18:01.

[speedy]

Lotus can't win as long as they can't qualify into the top 3.
They have good race pace in free air in certain conditions (like today at the latter part of the race when it got warmer), but to benefit from that they should have the free air with positions higher up.

IMO the drivers have done a decent job and they are mostly consistent, but the team has room for improvement in strategy and technology department - qualifying has been hampered with poor strategy and mechanical issues (differential and KERS).

I'm still afraid that the teams with better funds and resources will improve with quicker pace than Lotus and Lotus will decline at the end of the season

[joshb]

Why haven't Lotus won a race?

Because they can't put the whole weekend together.
When teams like RB and Ferrari are being almost flawless with their strategy and the fact 3 of the 4 drivers in those teams don't often have shockers, they have to get every little bit perfect... and they're not quite perfect

RB suffered a bit from this in 2009/2010, not being used to winning.
If they keep putting themselves in the shop window, they'll get that win sooner or later

[Buttoneer]

Posts deleted. Please do not attempt to hijack the discussion with Kubica discussion. It is quite inappropriate to subvert the intentions of the thread starter with your own agenda so please do not do it.

[sofarapartguy]

They are not get used to be top team (05-06 were light years ago). Williams and Sauber have same curse, but even worse.

Second that.

Although Williams have actually won in Spain, and I think it is mainly because they were comfortable and familiar with being at the very front end - RE knew how to cope with big pressure and responsibility, team basically hasn't forgot how to win.

With Lotus we have a very fast car, smartly designed and perfectly predictable and balanced. But in the races it seems like the team operates too straightforward, relies on pure speed of drivers and nothing more. And I still think the Mark Slade is not that good - to many obvious mistakes for Kimi, especially in qually.

And yes, they should really give some pills to Romain - he HAS to be much calmer and patient and not try to win a race on the opening lap. It's not GP2 anymore.

[launcher]

They're a bit like Ferrari in many ways, they have a car that is consistently pretty good at most circuits but not spectacular at any of them. If you think about it, the only reason Ferrari have any wins at all is due to Alonso. Put someone even a little lesser in the car and they would not have won anything.

Many of the other wins so far have been in cars that were dominant at that circuit but not so consistently elsewhere.

Strange thing to say considering they have been fastest car on race day or equal in most of the races. Grosjean just came from last to finish 17 seconds from the race winner, and you dont think they have been spectacular?

They can't win because the drivers have been making mistakes and generally under performing. This car qualified 3rd at the first race in the hands of a rookie. Its been a rocket ship all season.

[hmm]

One problem Lotus seems to have is that their DRS doesn't appear to be very effective. We have seen them (especially Kimi) got stuck behind slower cars for many laps and unable to overtake even with the DRS. But then, Kimi has been very successful in defending on similar situations so the basic straight line speed of the car seems to be good. They just don't get as much extra top speed from DRS as perhaps others do and this leaves them vulnerable in the races.

RB used to have DRS like that which was optimized more for qualifying and not so much for races. Doesn't seem to work in qualifications for Lotus though.

[JensonWDC]

why?:




the car is a rocket, last time I saw a car which was similar dominant in race config was the MP4-20

[Music Lover]

Winning outside qualification top 3 is pretty damn hard in normal race.. so fix quali.

+1

And the Lotus team knows this.

Also, they NEED to work on strategy! Both in quali and race!!!!