Lotus investigate rear wing development

Following the FIA's ruling that the Mercedes rear wing was legal following an official complaint ahead of the Chinese GP, Lotus are now looking into how they can benefit from development in this area.

Lotus were the team in the paddock that was most strongly against the Mercedes interpretations of the FIA's regulations in regards to what is allowed in the DRS system and made the complaint to the FIA.

With the FIA once again backing Mercedes Double-DRS system as legal, Lotus are now developing plans of their own, having vowed not to take the issue to the FIA's Court of Appeal.

'We are at the point of making estimates of how big the gain might be and assessing the difficulty in actually realising that gain,' Lotus Technical Director James Allison told Lotus's official website.

Lotus believe that Mercedes have gained a big advantage with the use of their Double-DRS system, which takes airflow from the back of the car to the front, to stall the front wing down the straights during practice and qualifying and in the DRS Zone during a race.

This gives Mercedes a straight line speed advantage with both the front wing and the rear wing reacting to the driver enabling the DRS system.

'It's anyone's guess how powerful any existing system is,' he added, 'but that's not the issue; it's how powerful we think we can make any system which we can develop now we know how the rules can be interpreted.

'There are systems like Mercedes has, but the interpretation allows other permutations too. So it could be an interesting time for developments in this area.'

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has also stated that Red Bull are also looking into areas for development.

'They've [Mercedes] optimised and capitalised on it and inevitably now we will pursue our own solutions.

'But I think first of all, like any component, it has to earn a place on the car as a package. It's not a given on everybody's car that it's a bolt-on laptime.' he told Autosport Magazine.

While McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh believes that we may even hear more controversial designs based around the DRS system.

'I think there will be a continued controversy over the DRS, but we have a range of development priorities and we will continue to bring performance to the race,' he said.