Lotus F1 and Lotus IRL

Lotus Racing (F1) is owned by Fernandes. KVRT (IRL) is owned by Kalkhoven. At this point in time, neither has anything more to do with Lotus the car company than Tonino has with Lamborghini the car company.

 

All of the IRL (or whatever it's called this week) cars are Dallara chassis and Honda engines. Lotus is a sponsor on the car, nothing more.

 

I dunno, i've never tried...

 

Dunno is with Citgo

What's on second?

JD

 

Was it the Lotus F1 effort using a Dallara chassis with a Cosworth engine?

(Web search: it was HRT that took over Campos' Dallara chassis and a "spec" Cosworth.)

The Lotus car company doesn't make either the F1 nor the Indycar machines. Lotus sponsors the Indy car. I think the F1 team got the rights to the name from a family member, not the car company. (There was some contention over that, as I recall. Maybe that's why Lotus sponsored an Indycar team this year.)

I hear that Lotus is also sponsoring a classic racing series, next year.

 

Lotus and Cosworth are simply sponsors of the IRL team. The IRL team still uses Honda engines. Not sure if Lotus provides any additional technical support to the team.

 

Where is Andy Granatelli and STP when you need them..

 

Lol

 

Not so. It looks like there is some factory involvement, not just a sponsorship.

http://www.auto123.com/en/racing-news/irl/irl-lotus-back-in-indycar-racing?artid=117147

Lotus will make a comeback into the North American open wheel scene as the No. 5 KV Racing Technology car will bare the classic Green and Yellow livery used by the famed British team in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

The Honda-powered Dallara, which will be driven by former Formula 1 driver Takuma Sato, will make its debut at the Honda Grand Prix in St-Petersburg as Lotus and Cosworth have entered into a technical and commercial partnership with the IZOD IndyCar Series team.

A highly successful Formula 1 team, Lotus competed for a number of years in IndyCar racing in the 1960s, winning the Indianapolis 500 in 1965 with a Lotus Type 38 driven by Jim Clark.

Entering the IZOD IndyCar Series follows the recent announcement that the strategic partnership of Lotus and Cosworth will investigate opportunities to develop high performance engines for Lotus cars.

 

Looks like BS. What part of the Honda-Dallara is Lotus? The Lotus stickers?

 

Don't discount the idea totally. The IRL has been looking for engine suppliers for a long time now. There could very well be a Lotus cosworth indycar sometime in the future. In actuality the IRL team has real factory involvement while the F1 team is Lotus in name only.

 

Its my understanding that there is Lotus Cars involvment in both. Proton who owns Lotus is a major backer to the F-1 team, and Louts Cars USA is the IRL sponsor / tech partner. Any way you look at it, still is great to see Lotus back in Competition especially in open wheel cars.

 

... and I can tell you IMHO at Sunday's Indy race near Birmingham, that "Lotus" Indy car was the most beautiful one out there. (Second place was Franchitti's blue car.) The green and yellow was stunning. The Indy car bears the same badge Lotus cars had through about 1975 ... the classic ACBC logo.

 

I love Lotus, but really??

Feff

Lotus Now Eyeing Established Teams - Kovalainen​

By Motorsport.com/GMM
Date 2010-05-19

Lotus is almost ready to begin fighting with F1's established teams, according to Heikki Kovalainen.

The Malaysian backed outfit has been the most impressive of the sport's three new entrants this year, particularly in the wake of a recent upgrade for the T127 car.

And despite Kovalainen retiring in Monaco with a steering problem, the Finn thinks Lotus is getting ready to make its next step.

"For a time I was able to drive at the same pace as the Renault of Petrov," he is quoted by France's Auto Hebdo after the famous street race.

"We showed in Monaco that we are clearly the best of the new teams and that we will soon be able to fight with the teams in front of us."

28-year-old Kovalainen's was the fourteenth fastest race lap in Monaco, ahead of the Saubers and even Rubens Barrichello's Williams.

 

Does that mean that he will stop trying to behead di Grassi now and start crashing into the Williams and Toro Rossos?

 

That's great except for the fact that the Saubers/Barrichello retired early when the cars were still heavy with fuel...

 

You owe me a keyboard Florian

 

Lotus Signings a 'Statement of Intent' ​

By Matt Beer
Wednesday, June 2nd 2010, 17:52 GMT


Lotus' chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne has described the signing of leading design personnel Mark Smith, Marianne Hinson and Lewis Butler from Force India as a 'statement of intent'.

He says drivers Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen knew when they joined up that moves to recruit the trio were underway, and that this was key to convincing the two experienced racers to take a chance on the start-up team.

"Certainly starting next year and targeting where we're going to be next year and beyond, this is a significant statement of intent," Gascoyne told AUTOSPORT. "A little bit like signing Jarno and Heikki. You had two experienced drivers and people saying 'well what are they going to be driving at the back of the grid? Why are they doing it?'

"Well now you start to see why maybe, because they would've know that these sort of people were on board a long time before everyone else did. That's what they're signing up for, the fact that next year's car is going to be designed by people of this calibre. That's why they're on board."

He described Smith and his colleagues' decision to join Lotus as a major complement to the young team.

"They have faith in the team, they have faith in the finance of the team, they have faith in me, they have faith in Tony [Fernandes]," Gascoyne said.

"Norfolk isn't the easiest place in the country to persuade people to come to, and the fact that they're moving their families, it shows the belief that there is in Lotus. I don't think they want to move to Norfolk because they're loyal to me, they've got to believe in what they're doing."

Gascoyne added that the new personnel would help Lotus move its focus onto its 2011 car.

"There will be updates all year, but it was always the intention to switch early," he said. "You saw in Turkey that we've come from five seconds off the pace to three seconds off the pace. But we're still a second off the cars in front - the Toro Rossos, the Williams, the Saubers.

"Now we think we'll close that done to not very much by the end of the year, but it still puts you 19th and 20th on the grid. So there's an element of saying 'why bother?', let's switch that resource onto 2011 and start 2011 in the midfield pack.

"I think that's a very sound argument and that's very much what we're focused on, and again these guys are very much part of that."

While Hinson and Butler have already started work at Lotus, Gascoyne said Smith's arrival date depended on him negotiating a notice period with Force India.

"That's entirely in his hands and Force India's," he said. "He'll come to us when he's able to."

Lotus announced its new signings on the same day that Force India issued a statement insisting it was still pursuing legal action against the team, but Gascoyne played down the situation between the two squads.

"It's unfortunate. We regard the legal action as old news really," he said. "We feel that situation will become eminently clear to everyone as that develops."

 

Cosworth = Engine supplier to Lotus F1

Cosworth / Co-owner = Kevin Kalkhoven

Indycar team, KV Racing / Co-Owner = Kevin Kalkhoven

 

...KV Racing Technology "Lotus-Cosworth" Dallara-Honda

 

Reluctant Trulli to Get New Chassis ​

By Jonathan Noble
Friday, June 18th 2010, 13:09 GMT


Jarno Trulli will get a new chassis for the European Grand Prix - but only after he initially turned the car change down because he did not want team-mate Heikki Kovalainen to feel he was being favoured.

Lotus' latest chassis was always scheduled for arrival at the Valencia race, and Kovalainen had been pencilled down as the man to get it.

However, with Trulli having complained of balance problems with his usual car, technical chief Mike Gascoyne reckoned it would be in the team's interests that the Italian gets it instead this time.

When Trulli was told what has happening, however, he said he did not want the new chassis because it was not fair on Kovalainen.

"Jarno has been pretty unhappy with the balance of his car and has been struggling," Gascoyne told AUTOSPORT. "We have a new chassis scheduled to come for Valencia, and that was due to go to Heikki.

"But, because of Jarno's troubles, I made the call to change it to him. But Jarno, when he was told, said, 'No, I don't want Heikki to feel that I am being favoured, please feel free to give it to Heikki.'

"So I went up to Heikki and told him. Then he said, 'No, Jarno is struggling, give it to him!'

"It's a situation that sums up the great feeling within the team - that they are both trying to help each other. In the end we are going to give it to Jarno, but the two drivers are open to swapping it around afterwards."

On the back of an encouraging performance at the Canadian Grand Prix, and with a major upgrade on the car scheduled for the British GP, Gascoyne thinks the team's focus has shifted from being best of the new outfits, to actually threatening the establishment.

"From the whole of the Canada weekend, the message is that it is time we stopped looking at being the best of the new teams and looking behind us," he said.

"This is now about trying to outqualify a Sauber - trying to race the Williams and the Renault cars. It is about being a midfield team not just the best of the new boys. I think that is the statement we have made this weekend."

Gascoyne thinks it too much to expect Lotus becoming a regular in hauling itself among the established teams, but reckons it can on occasion punch above its weight.

"I would say in reality we are probably seven or eight tenths away from them, and the Silverstone upgrade might bring us half a second closer. Will we nick places off people consistently? Probably not, but with the two drivers we have got, with their experience - if anyone drops the ball or doesn't get the right lap then I think we can start nicking some odd places.

"What we said at the start of the year was that we wanted to end up challenging the back end of the midfield group and I think that is exactly where we will be. You would like to be beating them, but in reality that was always going to be too much of a step, especially as we are concentrating on next year's car now.

"But I think we will still end up exactly where we said we would be. We had one employee this time a year ago, so for the performance we did in Canada everyone in the team can hold their head up. It is a statement from the new teams - you can come in and do a hell of a good job and be racing, and I think that is very good news for F1."

 

You can't make two at once