F1: Lotus Breaks Cover On E21 Car

Formula 1

F1: Lotus Breaks Cover On E21 Car

The Lotus E21 becomes the first new car of 2013 to be revealed...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted January 28, 2013 Balen (BEL)

The Lotus E21 was seen Monday for the first time. (Image: Lotus)

The Lotus E21 became the first 2013 F1 car to break cover when the team conducted an online launch on Monday evening.

The car has been overseen by technical director James Allison.

Introducing the car, Allison said: “There’s a lot gone into it, and it’s going to be an exciting car. The rules for 2013 are very, very similar to those of 2012, so you can expect a lot of family resemblance from a 2012 car.

“But as ever in F1, the devil is in the detail, and the detail of this car adds up to a significant amount of performance. It’s a mixture, there’s some neat new ideas in there, and a lot of pushing of the same sort of concepts that we’ve been working on for a few years.”

The car still has a nose step, and Allison confirmed that weight concerns meant no vanity panel has been fitted as yet.

“We have not done it yet because the cosmetic panel would weigh a few grams, and with an F1 car putting a few grams on that you don’t need to is really anathema to us," he said. "However, if we find a cosmetic panel that looks nice and much more important and crucially develops a bit of downforce, then we’ll pop it on as quick as you like!”

Kimi Raikkonen noted: “It’s not going to be easy to improve on what we did already last year, but that’s our aim, to do better, not just for the drivers, but the team also. Hopefully, we can do it.

“We tried to improve in all areas, and for sure if you can qualify more higher up, it will give you a much better chance to win more races and makes your life much easier on race days. It’s the whole package that they’ve been trying to make faster, and hopefully they’ve managed to do that.”

Meanwhile, Romain Grosjean said: “The team did its best to improve from last year. I think we had a beautiful car last year to drive, really nice. Kimi won a race, we had some podiums. Everybody wants more, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.