Lotus to maintain momentum despite loss of Allison

2013 Monaco Grand Prix

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Lotus team principal Eric Boullier says his team’s development programme for this year and next will not be affected by the loss of technical director James Allison.

The departure of Allison, who is rumoured to be heading to Ferrari, was revealed by the team last week, with Nick Chester promoted to the role of technical director.

“We have a very strong technical department made of many people,” said Boullier. “It’s an illustration of the strength of talent at Enstone that we were able to promote from within, and Nick Chester has been working on adopting his new role for some time now.”

“We have plenty of upgrades to come for the E21, as well as the additional challenge of reacting to the forthcoming tyre changes.

“We’re confident we can maintain performance and development with this year’s car whilst at the same time developing an exciting car for 2014 and the new regulations.”

The team will be bringing Monaco-specific parts for next week’s race on the streets of the Principality, according to operations director Alan Permane.

“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,” Permane said.

“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.”

2013 Monaco 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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15 comments on “Lotus to maintain momentum despite loss of Allison”

  1. Its weird Nich Chester not the one previewing instead Alan tooks over.

  2. Has anyone got any idea why he would leave so early in a season? Has there been a falling out or conflict of interest or something? It just seems strange to me why he would leave, especially after one of his cars has won the first race and scored a total of 5 podiums in 5 races. He had the chance to continue working on a championship winning car. It truly baffles me to be honest. It would be like a lawyer taking on someones case from the start, then leaving the day before the trial. Surely he had a contract that only ended at the end of a season?

    Adam Parr at least had some reason for leaving Williams right when they were on the up, and he was due to be named succesor etc. This just makes no sense to me currently.

    1. A good reason would be to make sure he can end his 6 months gardening leave in time to be able to work on the final details of next years aero package for his new employer (it would give him part of the second half of November and December), I would guess @nick-uk

      1. to make sure he can end his 6 months gardening leave

        What the..?? I’ll assume this part at least, is a joke. But leaving early to be able to be ‘in the know’ about **insert future employer here**’s car makes sense.

    2. Perhaps another team has got him on board for next year’s car nice and early.

  3. Yes, you wouldn’t imagine that one guy leaving would have them shouting to the world that they are in trouble, would you?
    Sure enough development for the next 2-3 months was already set in motion by about the time we left Australia, so its only logical Allison leaving will not change that much in the short term. But I hope for them that they have a solid enough team for next years car.

    1. off course for Monaco their relatively weak qualifying pace might be a slight worry. On the other hand, they did outqualify Ferrari and at least one Red Bull lately, so its not all bad.

      1. @bascb Kimi really struggled there last year – let’s hope the more fragile Pirellis will be easier to warm up this time round.

        1. the more fragile pirelli’s won’t arrive until canada , until then we will have the more resistant carcases

          1. They will be changing the compounds more into the direction of last year Canada onwards meaning they will be made harder, not more fragile.

            “The more fragile” compounds (to what they were last year) are what we currently have.

        2. That was most likely widely because he missed one of the FP sessions completely. They know what went wrong last year and won’t be making the same mistakes again I’m sure.

        3. Yes Kimi did struggle last year, it was properly one his worst races of the year. But there were reasons for it. He missed the first session in FP due to him not liking the steering. Then in the second session it rained and there was no running. In the end he only had the hour in FP3 to prepare for the race and qualifying. Monaco is properly one of the worst places to miss a whole day of practice, and being out of F1 for two years also properly didn’t help the situation.

          I hope Lotus does better this year, but they where really bad in sector 3 in Barcelona, that isn’t a good indication for Monaco.

  4. I wish the best for Lotus i like the team, an honest and respectable team.

    1. Nick.UK (@)
      18th May 2013, 9:27

      @nomore It’s nice that some people have forgotten Singapore 2009… Though I agree they have changed as a team a lot since them. If they had Kubica still, along with Kimi this year I think they could have been proper WCC contenders.

  5. Whatever the reason I can’t imagine leaving my squad in the middle of the battle unless being forced out. Otherwise, what message I would send to my new employer… The whole situation is odd at least.
    I wish all the best to Lotus team.

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