Lotus E20 - front wing solutions 25 June 2012
Lotus brought three different front wings to Valencia and in the end Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean decided to race with two different solutions. Whilst Raikkonen used the front wing introduced at the previous round in Canada (see right-hand insets), Grosjean opted to sample a modified version of this Montreal wing (see main drawing). On the solution used by Grosjean, the cascade flaps are no longer positioned squarely against the endplates, but are attached with a rounded section (1), which creates a kind of vortex to energise the airflow. In addition, a vertical slot (2) has been added to the back section of the endplate-flap assembly. Both front wings used by the Lotus drivers, however, are believed to have featured the unusual and wide gurney flap (3) in the middle of the second flap's chord, which was originally introduced at Montreal. The new flap ends with a slotted section (4).
