Over at the official Lotus Renault GP website they’ve given a brief rundown on how the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, otherwise known as KERS, will be applied to their R31 racecar.
First introduced in the 2009 season, where only a handful of teams ran the system, KERS makes a comeback in 2011 and while still not compulsory for all teams to use, a change in regulations should make it more attractive for teams to adopt. As LRGP explains, “The minimum weight of the cars has been increased from 620kg to 640kg – a move that should encourage most teams to run with KERS since the trade-off between extra weight and extra horsepower has been significantly reduced.”
Essentially the setup allows for an extra boost of up to 60kW for around 7 seconds per lap. Interestingly, LRGP say using KERS during qualifying should provide the biggest advantage because the refuelling ban during races has made it harder to use pit strategy to improve track position. That is, the higher up the grid you can start, the better you’re likely to finish. Which is kind of obvious, but we also get their point. However, we can only assume they’ve been missing the feedback on the rapid degradation of the new Pirelli tyres (more on that later).
Overall, the article is good intro to KERS if you missed it the first time around in 2009.
[Source: Lotus Renault GP | Pic: LRGP/LAT]