Tag: Lotus

Pre-Turkey Indy Hump Day Report, On the bubble: Your third cousin Lee Roy

Mike Shaw
You call it Maze, we call it wheels.

Well for us American IndyCar fans the gluttony of Holidays is here. Tomorrow we will load up on dead birds, potatoes, beer, green beans, cranberries, awful NFC teams on national TV, and being annoyed by our nit witted family members we only have to sit near three times a year. For our non-American fellow fans tomorrow is just Thursday. (Or Friday if you’re in Asia.) First I would like to list what I am Thankful for as an IZOD IndyCar series follower: That Randy Bernard is now the man in…

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Lotus building a new IZOD IndyCar Engine & Aerokit: Respecting its old school roots

Mike Shaw

It was short and to the point. Tonight at the Los Angeles Autoshow the IZOD IndyCar series and the Lotus group made it official. In 2012 there will be three engine makes in the IZOD IndyCar series. The brand which has never made their own engine for a race car will now be a manufacturer in IndyCar. Lotus Group CEO, Danny Bahar did not give any technical specifications on the 2012 IZOD IndyCar series engine. In a Press Release from earlier in the day IZOD IndyCar series and Lotus says technical specifications…

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OpEd – Top Five Most Influential Race Cars

Doug Patterson

In keeping with the Top-Five series of posts, we now turn our attention to the cars. What do you think were the top five most influential race cars throughout motorsports history? We’ve taken a stab as some we think were true game-changers in their time. Lotus 38 Being a life-long fan of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, I might be a bit prejudice, but the Lotus 38 that Jimmy Clark drove to victory in 1965 changed how Americans viewed race cars. Prior to the Lotus 38, the cars that ran…

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F1 – Team Lotus Gets Serious About Improving

Doug Patterson

We already know that Lotus Racing …er… Team Lotus (whatever they’re going by now days) will drop the Cosworthless lump in favour of Renault. Today, Team Lotus has gone further toward improving their technological position by confirming that they will use Red Bull Technologies’ gearbox and hydraulics for the 2011 season rather than the Xtrac equipment. “The announcement that we have reached a multi-year agreement with Red Bull Technology for the supply of our gearboxes and hydraulics from 2011 is obviously a massive step forward for us, both in engineering…

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OpEd – Will the real Lotus please stand up?

Doug Patterson

Group Lotus, Team Lotus, Lotus Racing, Lotus Motorsports, Lotus Cars, Lotus Engineering… we have a whole field of Lotus and its downright confusing to us fans! To add to the confusion Group Lotus is suing Lotus Racing over the rights to use the name Team Lotus. …er? what? Yeah, that’s how I felt at first to. It would be simpler if one group was the production car wing of the larger parent company and the other group the motorsports wing. However, that’s not exactly how it is. Group Lotus has…

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OpEd – How important are aesthetics anyway?

Doug Patterson

Discussion of the DeltaWing concept has arisen once again, and also once again at the instigation of Gordon Kirby who wrote an article Rediscovering racing’s true self, and Peter De Lorenzo via his article IndyCar’s death warrant. In these articles, Kirby and De Lorenzo dote on the DeltaWing and its superior engineering concepts. When one talks with a typical race fan about the DeltaWing, however, what one hears most often is something along the lines of, “It’s a brilliant engineering exercise, but …well… it’s ugly isn’t it.” Is the look…

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IndyCar – Lotus Jumps on for 2012

Shaun

The first manufacturer has jumped into the 2012 body kit fray. Lotus which had indicated that they would think about creating a kit for the series has confirmed that they will develop a kit for purchase when the new rules come into affect. Lotus brass cited this as a continued evolution of the brands involvement in the sport. The team has given a large amount of financial backing to KV Racing Technologies and even put their name and logo on the car piloted by Takumo Sato. This now means that a…

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IndyCar – Facts and Opinion About the 2012 Chassis

Doug Patterson

Introduction Wednesday, Indy Racing League announced the decision by the ICONIC committee regarding the direction for the 2012 chassis. We posted an initial reaction to this announcement yesterday, and Shaun and I debated the pros and cons of the future chassis proposal in Podcast Episode 47. Today, I’d like to look at the proposal in a bit more detail and first I’ll present the facts and details that are clearly known and highlight areas that are yet to be fully fleshed out. Following the clear facts, I’d like to dive…

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F1 – Grand Prix of Monaco

Shaun

This weekend Formula 1 was on its grandest stage of all with the Monaco Grand Prix. Red Bull Racing was able to take yet another pole position with Mark Webber carrying momentum from the Spanish Grand Prix. However, we all know that Monaco can yield some surprising results and nothing would be a guarantee. Those surprises would not creep up this weekend as Mark Webber dominated his second event in a row. The Australian led flag to flag in what would be a Red Bull Racing 1-2. The result would…

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F1 – Friday Practice Thoughts

Shaun

I will preface this bit by saying this will only cover free practice 2 since that is all we in the US are legally capable of getting. I was happy to see that cars were on track for the first time in 2010. With all the depressing news on USF1 and the other teams as well as the return of Michael and all of the positive stories in the news, I was like a boy on Christmas Eve hardly able to sleep last night. Here are just a few things…

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