Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Chester happy with Pirelli choices for next three GPs

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Lotus F1 Team technical director Nick Chester said that Pirelli's selection of tyres compounds for the next three races is what he was expecting.

The choice of yellow-banded softs and red-walled supersofts for Singapore and white-marked mediums and orange-lined hards for Suzuka is the same as last year, but the tyre manufacturer has opted to supply slightly softer compounds for Formula One's second visit to Sochi Autodrom in October.

"The asphalt has not changed significantly since its debut, and looking at the data from 2014, a softer step is possible," said Pirelli in a press release announcing that it would be bringing softs and supersofts this year.

Chester said that he had expected the move and that the announcement brought no surprises for Lotus.

"The allocations for the next races are pretty much what we’ve seen before and expected," he said.

"For Sochi we go a step softer which should be beneficial for all.

"It’s normal for a tyre supplier to err on the side of caution with a new circuit which is what happened last year for our first visit to Russia, so a step softer for this year is not a big surprise.

"It’s a smooth surface so getting the energy into the tyres with the harder compounds can be a challenge."

Chester said that despite first lap retirements for both Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado at Monza last weekend, the team was still happy with the overall performance of the E23 and that the data they had got out of the weekend had been promising.

"We were reasonably happy with the performance of the car, the drivers were confident with the balance and performance," he said.

"Qualifying went reasonably well and although we could have got a little bit more out of it starting eighth and tenth on the grid wasn’t bad.

"It was a real shame to have both drivers taken out and neither accident was the fault of our drivers. We could have had a good run otherwise, on pace we should have been fighting for fifth."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.