Charles Pic will return to the wheel of an F1 car in a race weekend practice session for the first time since last season.
Pic, who is Lotus’s third driver, will run for the team in the first practice session.
He previously drove the E22 during this year’s test at Silverstone where his car was fitted with Pirelli’s prototype 18-inch tyres at one point. His car number will be 30.
The team will spend Friday evaluating their low-downforce package.
“We will focus on the braking so Romain [Grosjean] and Pastor [Maldonado] can make gains on the entries to the chicanes and generally feel more comfortable in feeling where the limits are,” said technical director Nick Chester.
“We have more aero parts to take to Italy which we will try on the Friday free practice sessions. We will have a low-drag rear wing for Monza that is circuit-specific and as a result the skinniest we will run all season. It is all about meeting the low downforce challenge.”
The other three practice drivers in action will be Daniel Juncadella for Force India, Roberto Merhi for Caterham and Giedo van der Garde for Sauber.
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Image © Lotus/LAT
Boomerang
5th September 2014, 12:37
I’m glad for Charles. Not much of the experience when your main competitors are Marussias and Caterhams.
I live in hope that Lotus’ TD will realize, at last, that pursuing more camber on bump characteristic of the front suspension leads nowhere with contemporary tire specification. More camber on bump was justified with carcass structure of 2013 tires.
Every tire has its constant of elasticity ( k ), just like springs, where ‘k’ is a constant factor characteristic of the spring, its stiffness. Difference between the tire and the spring is that in the case of tire you can influence it by changing tire pressure. You fight deflection with camber on bump gain. However, speaking in general, tires are much stiffer this year and deflect less under lateral forces hence demanding less camber on bump. Lotus’ is doing just the opposite. With low downforce package in Monza problem of grip becomes even greater.
More camber on bump is a wrong way of making the car work with stiffer tires.
‘Hope they’ll get it at last and give their drivers a more competitive car.