Lotus Cars – Something From The Weekend – 23/04/2012

A great weekend for Lotus in motorsport, with podiums in F1, GP2 and a class victory for Team Bullrun in the GT4 class in the Britcars at Donington.

You can read the full Lotus report below:

FORMULA ONE – BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX

“#Wheresmypodium” tweeted the Lotus F1 Team throughout the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend. Having come close in each of the opening rounds, the obvious pace of the Lotus E20 and the unquestionable skills of Kimi Raikkonen and young hotshoe Romain Grosjean, it was only a matter of time. Finally, in the Middle East, it came together. Continue reading

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Lotus F1 Team – Bahrain GP – Team Report and Driver Interviews

Following on from a successful race today in Bahrain, the Lotus F1 Team have posted up their Race Report along with an interview with star of the day Kimi Räikkönen and podium finisher Romain Grosjean.

Kimi, your first podium of the season here in Bahrain today; you must be delighted?

I am very happy. At last, we made the podium after a few missed opportunities. We had the car already in the first three races to be up there, but we made some small mistakes and it cost us a lot. Of course I wanted to win today, and I would have been much happier if we had managed to get the victory, but nevertheless it’s a good result and the team deserved it for all their hard work. Hopefully we can put ourselves in this position more often.

Discussion: Chapman Arms – Today’s F1

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Lotus F1 Team – Bahrain GP – Sunday Race

The Lotus F1 Team delivered on their promise from pre-season testing to turn the tables on some disappointing early races to gain a fantastic double podium. Promoting the team to third place in the constructors championship.

Both Räikkönen and Grosjean gained places off the grid having started 11th and 7th respectively, and Grosjean took advantage of the DRS zones to make his way up to 2nd place in the early stages. Meanwhile Räikkönen put in a series of impressive overtaking maneuvers and made the most of the extra new sets of soft tyres he’d saved in qualifying to gain on his French team-mate and ultimately overtake him in to Turn 1 just ahead of his 2nd pit stop.

As they approached the third and final stops Räikkönen looked like being a serious contender for the race victory, closing to within 1 second of Vettel, but couldn’t match the Germans place after the final stop as the cars switched to the harder tyre compound and settled in to 2nd place a few seconds back.

The race finished in the order they went in to their final stops, with Räikkönen giving the Lotus F1 Team their first podium of the year and the first of his comeback, along with the first podium of Grosjeans career.

Discussion: Chapman Arms – Today’s F1

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Exige S Deliveries to Begin September

After numerous delays it appears the customer deliveries of the new V6 engined Exige S are expected to begin in September, with Lotus focusing on building the first run of Elise S’ while the Exige S supply chain is ramped up following the funding freeze put in place after the DRB-Hicom takeover of Proton.

This news looks to be something of a setback for the 350 purported customers with pre-orders for the hotly anticipated new model, particularly those who were hoping to be able to enjoy the car over the summer here in the UK.

It’s not all bad news however, with another Exige S roadshow planned in the next month or so with one of the press fleet set to tour the dealers, giving those who are holding out to drive the car before placing their order the chance to get some time behind the wheel.

Discussion: SELOC Chat – Exige S V6 to arrive in September

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DRB-Hicom “Has not decided to sell Lotus Group”

Just spotted on Harry Metcalfes Twitter feed and now updated with the full press release over on the EVO website.

DRB-HICOM HAS NOT DECIDED ON SELLING LOTUS

KUALA LUMPUR, 21 April 2012 – Following numerous reports in the media on Lotus Group International Limited (Lotus Group), a wholly-owned subsidiary of PROTON Holdings Berhad (PROTON), DRB-HICOM Berhad (DRB-HICOM) as the new owner of PROTON would like to clarify some important matters.

DRB-HICOM is currently undertaking an operations audit on Lotus Group, as part of its governance exercise. Contrary to reports that Lotus Group would be put under administration, DRB-HICOM is still supporting Lotus Group, both financially and management wise.

DRB-HICOM has not decided to sell Lotus Group and do not know the source of the speculation about selling Lotus Group to a Chinese party i.e Youngman. As of today, DRB-HICOM has identified one of PROTON’s Senior Management personnel to take up a position in Lotus Group in an effort to strengthen its management.

Source: EVO – Inside Lotus
Discussion: SELOC Chat – DRB-Hicom “Has not decided to sell Lotus Group”

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Lotus F1 Team – Bahrain GP – Friday Practice

Despite fire-bombs, protests and safety concerns practice started for the 2012 Bahrain GP today, with Lotus looking for a strong performance after failing to capitalise on the cars potential in the first three races.

The team finished the first session in P9 and P10, but slipped a little to P9 and P13 in the second session, but seemed happier with the cars performance compared to in the first practice sessions at last weeks Chinese GP.

Lotus Cars – DESERT STORM – BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX
Lotus F1 Team – What a Difference a Week Makes – Bahrain Grand Prix, Free Practice 1 Report

Lotus F1 Team – Going the Distance – Bahrain Grand Prix, Free Practice 2 Report

Discussion: Chapman Arms – Bahrain F1

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Lotus Driving Academy – The Lotus Experience Offer

Along with the Level 1 and Level 2 discounts they already offer for SELOC members the Lotus Driving Academy have got in touch with another offer, this time for an afternoon session (1:30-5:30pm) for up to 12 SELOC members on “The Lotus Experience” on the 4th of May for £249, a £50 saving off the usual price.

“The Lotus Experience” gives participants to take in a range of activities, including a Factory Tour, Track Driving Session in the Lotus Elise 1.6, and a Road Driving session in the Lotus Evora S.

You can find out more details and how to book in our forum thread.

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EVO – Harry Metcalfe: Inside Lotus

Harry Metcalfe has updated his blog over on the EVO website, talking a little about his thoughts on the recent controversy surrounding the company, giving some reasons to be hopeful for the future, and sharing these wise words….

But what Lotus doesn’t need right now is all this negative speculation on it’s survival, (which I believe is a given anyway). What we should be focussing on, though, is what the British sports car landscape is going to be like in 2015 because, along with McLaren and possibly Aston, it has the makings of being even better than what’s coming out of Italy right now. It’s about time car enthusiasts started celebrating this fact, rather than constantly looking for ways to stop it happening.

Here’s hoping!

Source: EVO – Harry Metcalfe: Inside Lotus
Discussion: Forum Thread

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Lotus Cars – Production To Return To Full Speed By May

Lotus Cars have posted an update to their Facebook Page with news that production at it’s Hethel factory has been ramping back up again since the start of April after the DRB-Hicom induced funding freeze and will be back to the full 44 cars per week by the first week in May.

LOTUS – TRUE FIGHTING SPIRIT: As you know, production has been running at a reduced rate, but we have been ramping up from 1st April and plan to be back to normal by the first week in May (44 load units per week – Elise, Evora, Exige S).

Source: Facebook – Lotus Cars
Discussion: Forum Thread

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Lotus Cars – Lotus ambassador Jean Alesi reflects on the Chinese Grand Prix…

After an eventful Chinese Grand Prix Lotus ambassador Jean Alesi has talked to Lotus about his view on the teams performance.

Source: Lotus Cars – Lotus ambassador Jean Alesi reflects on the Chinese Grand Prix…
Discussion: Chapman Arms – Chinese GP

Well, first of all what a fantastic race. China was really thrilling right to the end, and it was thanks to the different tyre strategies the teams adopted…

Kimi Raikkonen slid from second to 14th in the closing laps – where did it all go wrong?

Kimi’s strategy was quite optimistic, staying out on his third set of tyres. I was so shocked when he lost all those positions in just a couple of laps. He did a great job of keeping those cars behind him as long as he did, but suddenly there was a big drop-off of grip and when Sebastian Vettel got past, Kimi was forced to go off line and picked up the discarded rubber marbles. He had no chance to clean his tyres and everyone else passed him. Fernando Alonso suffered more or less the same thing, but there weren’t so many cars behind him and he only lost a couple of places. Continue reading

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