F1: Lotus still working on steering

Lotus technical director James Allison says the team is still working to refine its steering system to Kimi Raikkonen's liking after the issues faced by the Finn in Monaco. Raikkonen was set to try out a different set-up in Monte Carlo only to then miss the entire first session as the team was forced to change the steering to better suit the former champion. Speaking in a preview interview ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend in Montreal, Allison explained more about the reasons for the change and said that it was something the team was still looking into even if there was no cause for concern. “Monaco demands a specific steering setup which entails different suspension components to enable sufficient steering lock to be employed,” he said. “In addition, we tried a higher geared steering setup for Kimi. You can't test this in advance so the first practice session was used to trial this new setup, but it was evident very quickly that it was not suitable. The change takes sufficient time that we had to start immediately in first practice, but he knows the track well. We could also see Romain's pace despite a lack of F1 experience in Monaco. “Kimi struggled with both the car and the tyres throughout the weekend and I think it would have been a troublesome event for him with or without having run in every session. Our base steering set-up has got Kimi on to the podium, but we're still working on refining it to get it exactly to his liking.” The Monaco weekend turned out to be a huge disappointment for Lotus, with Raikkonen down in ninth place and team-mate Romain Grosjean being forced out by a clash on the run to St Devote at the start. Next stop if another street circuit in Montreal with Allison admitting it was a different circuit entirely to the one found in Monte Carlo. “Montreal is a total contrast to Monaco,” he said. “However it's another circuit which is further towards the smoother end of the spectrum in terms of track surface, so it will give us a chance to see how much this may have affected performance in Monaco, and whether we can get the business done under these kinds of circumstances. “We'll be taking a smaller rear wing with a front wing set up to balance that. One of the key factors is to make sure we have our braking configuration correctly set up with good levels of cooling to survive what is a very arduous race for the brakes. Luckily the car has been quite good on brakes throughout the year to date with no real issues to report.”