Lotus has confirmed that Pastor Maldonado's retirement at the Belgian Grand Prix was caused by a 17G impact from hitting the kerbs at Eau Rouge.
The Venezuelan lined up in seventh place for the start at Spa-Francorchamps, but was forced to exit the race on lap three after his E23 shut down.
His team-mate went on to finish in third place, scoring the Lotus team's first podium since the 2013 United States Grand Prix.
Ahead of the next round in Italy at the Monza circuit, Nick Chester - the Enstone-based outfit's technical director - revealed the cause of Maldonado's retirement.
"We are still checking all the parts but he had a big excursion at Eau Rouge and hit some kerbs very hard which gave the chassis a 17G impact," he explained.
"That looks to have effectively knocked the power off the car and although he managed to get the power back on, it looks like we might have damaged the clutch control valve.
"Even though we may have been able to reset it when Pastor came back to the pits, we looked at the extent of the damage and decided to retire the car."
Chester said Lotus will test a few new parts at Monza, and is confident the team can score a good result: "I think that the potential is quite good. The cars have performed well at medium downforce tracks like Montréal and Spa.
"Monza is a step lower downforce that we never run anywhere else. The car seems to be efficient heading down to these kinds of levels. The E23 also has good braking and is reasonably well set-up for low drag. It should go quite well in Italy."
This article first appeared on Richland F1.
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| © Octane Photographic |
His team-mate went on to finish in third place, scoring the Lotus team's first podium since the 2013 United States Grand Prix.
Ahead of the next round in Italy at the Monza circuit, Nick Chester - the Enstone-based outfit's technical director - revealed the cause of Maldonado's retirement.
"We are still checking all the parts but he had a big excursion at Eau Rouge and hit some kerbs very hard which gave the chassis a 17G impact," he explained.
"That looks to have effectively knocked the power off the car and although he managed to get the power back on, it looks like we might have damaged the clutch control valve.
"Even though we may have been able to reset it when Pastor came back to the pits, we looked at the extent of the damage and decided to retire the car."
Chester said Lotus will test a few new parts at Monza, and is confident the team can score a good result: "I think that the potential is quite good. The cars have performed well at medium downforce tracks like Montréal and Spa.
"Monza is a step lower downforce that we never run anywhere else. The car seems to be efficient heading down to these kinds of levels. The E23 also has good braking and is reasonably well set-up for low drag. It should go quite well in Italy."
This article first appeared on Richland F1.
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