{"id":3331,"date":"2012-04-16T22:12:10","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T21:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seloc.org\/?p=3331"},"modified":"2012-04-16T22:12:10","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T21:12:10","slug":"lotus-cars-something-from-the-weekend-160412","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/2012\/04\/16\/lotus-cars-something-from-the-weekend-160412\/","title":{"rendered":"Lotus Cars – Something from the Weekend – 16\/04\/12"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A busy weekend for Lotus’ in motorsport, with not just the Formula 1 and LoTRDC series, but also Indycar and the first race for the Team Lotus AJR Evora GTE at Long Beach, California.<\/p>\n

Source: Lotus Cars – Something from the Weekend<\/a><\/p>\n

FORMULA ONE \u2013 CHINESE GRAND PRIX<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Lotus F1 Team embarked on an aggressive strategy in Shanghai that saw both drivers pit twice. The gamble worked for Romain Grosjean, who improved on his tenth place grid slot to come home sixth, while Kimi Raikkonen fell back. The Finn started an excellent fourth place and ran as high as second during laps 41 to 47. Having pitted for the second set of medium tyres four laps before Romain, he suffered huge degradation and was swamped by his rivals during the final laps. Grosjean\u2019s sixth place yields eight points \u2013 the first of his F1 career. <\/p>\n

Kimi Raikkonen:<\/strong> \u201cUp until the last ten laps it was looking quite good, but we ran out of tyre performance at the end. We had good pace in the race, we tried a different strategy and it didn\u2019t pay off. It\u2019s as simple as that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romain Grosjean:<\/strong> \u201cIt was a very good race, I really enjoyed it. To be up there fighting with McLaren and Red Bull is a great feeling and I\u2019m happy to have got my season started properly. We\u2019ve had high hopes since P3 on the grid in Melbourne, and now after a few setbacks it\u2019s time to aim higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

INDYCAR \u2013 LONG BEACH GRAND PRIX<\/strong><\/p>\n

A tough weekend for the Lotus-engined teams in California. Having been sidelined for much of practice and qualifying due to bad weather and a water pump issue, Lotus HVM\u2019s Simona di Silvestro suffered an engine failure 11 laps from the end of the 85 lap race, demoting her to 20th. Lotus Team Barracuda BHA\u2019s Alex Tagliani, who qualified tenth, struggled during the race and was also hit by EJ Viso, forcing him to pit for a new front wing. Ultimately, he retired and registered 21st place. Lotus Dragon Racing\u2019s Sebastien Bourdais finished 17th after hitting a tyre wall and losing two laps. His team-mate, Katherine Legge, also lost her front wing \u2013 she crossed the line in 19th. The highest Lotus finisher was DDR\u2019s Oriol Servia. He dropped two laps due to a kafuffle in the pits, but passed champion Dario Franchitti on the last lap for 15th. However, a car pile-up bumped him back down to 16th, after he stalled and needed his crew to push him across the finish line.<\/p>\n

Oriol Servia, Lotus DDR:<\/strong> \u201cWe lost a wheel nut and that’s what put us two laps down. Not the best day out there, but I’m really happy with the team, they kept their heads down and in the end that’s what will give us the results.”<\/p>\n

Alex Tagliani, Lotus Team Barracuda BHA:<\/strong> \u201cI think the car was decent in the race. We made some passes and I think the car would have been good to have a decent finish if we ran the whole race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simona De Silvestro, Lotus HVM Racing:<\/strong> \u201cWe had issues in practice and qualifying and only ran like six laps total going into the race, so we were excited to be running such a great race. We had good pit stops and only 11 laps to go when we lost the engine, so it\u2019s really frustrating. Not fun!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastien Bourdais, Lotus Dragon Racing:<\/strong> \u201cI lost the car on brakes, lost the rear, and went sideways. By then, it was too late, I was in the tyre wall. I thought for sure the car was all broken, but when I checked for damage, there was nothing, When the safety team got me going, I was two laps down, but decided to bring it home.\u201d<\/p>\n

AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES \u2013 LONG BEACH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lotus AJR\u2019s Evora took the chequered flag in its first ALMS race at the weekend, at Long Beach. Bill Sweedler was at the wheel at the start of the race and was hit from behind as he braked to avoid a stopped car. He was spun around and then, moments later, hit for a second time which caused severe damage to the exhaust and robbed the Evora of valuable horsepower. The crew made repairs, but Sweedler and team-mate Townsend Bell were down several laps. They soldiered on to take the flag.<\/p>\n

Bill Sweedler:<\/strong> \u201cIt was an unfortunate start. There was pile up in the Fountain Turn, I got hit from behind by a GTC car and he spun me.\u00a0 I was getting back underway when a prototype came in and hit me harder.\u00a0 That caused the exhaust pipe to be crimped by about 90-degrees, so we were putting out about one-tenth of the horsepower.\u00a0 The guys did a good job to make the repairs and keep us going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Townsend Bell:<\/strong> \u201cThe team hustled and worked hard to replace the exhaust and keep us in the race.\u00a0 It was nice for me to go out and drive this car against competition for the first time.\u00a0 We have a long list of things to work on with this car.\u00a0 We are realistic about the challenge ahead of us.\u00a0 I got to ride around the streets of Long Beach in a fast Lotus today, so that wasn’t all bad.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A busy weekend for Lotus\u2019 in motorsport, with not just the Formula 1 and LoTRDC series, but also Indycar and the first race for the Team Lotus AJR Evora GTE at Long Beach, California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A busy weekend for Lotus’ in motorsport, with not just the Formula 1 and LoTRDC series, but also Indycar and the first race for the Team Lotus AJR Evora GTE at Long Beach, California. Source: Lotus Cars – Something from the Weekend FORMULA ONE \u2013 CHINESE GRAND PRIX The Lotus F1 Team embarked on an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[46,49,52,102,334,426,480,508,522,527,533,732,762,782,840,859],"class_list":["post-3331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lotus","category-motorsport","tag-alex-tagliani","tag-alms","tag-american-le-mans","tag-bill-sweedler","tag-f1","tag-indycar","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-long-beach","tag-lotus-dragon-racing","tag-lotus-f1-team","tag-lotus-hvm-racing","tag-romain-grosjean","tag-sebastien-bourdais","tag-simona-de-silvestro","tag-team-lotus-ajr","tag-townsend-bell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/f.seloc.club\/w691\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}