Lotus technical director James Allison believes the team’s car has genuine pace in the dry and will continue to race at the front of the field in the upcoming races. Kimi Raikkonen produced a scintillating drive to take victory, his second for the team, in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. Raikkonen was seventh last time out in the rain-hit Malaysian Grand Prix, one place behind team-mate Romain Grosjean, but Allison told the latest edition of the JA on F1 podcast that the car still showed front-running pace in dry conditions. “We didn’t have a great race at Sepang More…

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier revealed it was a “relief” to watch Kimi Raikkonen take the team’s first win of the season in Abu Dhabi and first for the squad from Enstone, formerly known as Renault, since Fernando Alonso took victory in the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix. It was a victory which included a bit of good fortune as Lewis Hamilton’s retirement with a fuel pressure problem allowed Raikkonen to inherit the lead and one which rewarded them after a season of near misses. The black and gold liveried team started the season on the back foot after missing the More…

A Formula 1 pre-season is not really considered to really get going in earnest until the schedule reaches the Circuit de Catalunya and so it was somewhat symbolic that Sebastian Vettel – the man that everyone is expecting to again have to beat in 2012 – set the pace on the first day of running at Barcelona today. However, it was the early evening announcement by Lotus that the unusual problems with the second E20 chassis that had already curtailed its Tuesday running would now keep the team out of the rest of the test, that proved the real headline story More…

It has just been announced that Force India’s case against 1 Malaysia, the owner of Team Lotus, for infringement of intellectual property, will be heard in the High Court in London on January 16 2012. Force India is also pursuing Lotus Technical director Mike Gascoyne personally as well as Aerolab, the wind tunnel where the two teams were working on cars when the alleged IP leakage is said to have occured. This may prove to be Lotus’ third appearance in the High Court in 12 months, following the one starting two weeks today between Group Lotus and 1 Malaysia Group More…

There will be a new partnership on the F1 grid next year as Group Lotus, owned by the Malaysian government via Proton, has bought a stake in the Enstone based F1 team, creating Lotus Renault GP. This deal, which sees Lotus come in both as an equity partner alongside Genii Capital, the teams’ main shareholder, and as the main sponsor of the team, has been mooted for many months now and was finally signed off at the start of this week. In addition to a stake in the team, which is open ended, Lotus will be the title sponsor until More…

This will be an important week in the ongoing development of the Lotus F1 team. During the Brazil Grand Prix weekend, there will be an announcement that the team is to use Renault engines for the next two seasons. Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn, no less, is expected to be at Interlagos to convey the message. Brazil, booming economically, is a very important market for Renault. Ghosn said recently that one of Renault’s key objectives is to increase market share there from 6% to 10%. With the rapidly increasing middle class, millions of Brazilians are able to own a car for More…