Our nose design is legal, says Lotus

Lotus has countered speculation about the legality of its twin-pronged nose by insisting that it is legal.

Technical director Nick Chester said: “As you know we have passed all the necessary crash tests and we are very confident that our design complies with all the FIA legal requirements – we have just taken an innovative direction, and one that’s different to the other teams. Where there are so many variations in design, there is always bound to be a little talk, but we remain relaxed and focussed on our design and progression.”

Regarding what the team can learn despite missing the Jerez test, Chester said: “It’s always interesting to see what solutions the other teams have. Obviously you can’t see under the skin of the cars easily where the majority of the design work takes place, but it’s always interesting to see the various aero packaging on the other cars. We’ll look at the different bodywork options they’re running and there’s always a few things to pick up on what they are pursuing.

“As we can see there are plenty of different solutions out there as we expected there would be with such a radical change of regulations. There appears to be some elegant solutions and others that certainly don’t look as nice! We’re very happy with the direction we have taken, and it will be very interesting to see how the cars perform once we get a proper chance to compare them on track.”