1992 Caterham (lotus) Super Seven Sprint 1800 - Dedion. No Reserve on 2040-cars

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Lotus team out of Le Mans, full driver list published

We can scratch off one more car from the list for the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Lotus T129 LMP1 car has been dropped from the entry list of the 82nd running of the historic race, with organizers citing "a lack of preparation" as the reason. On a more positive note, the list of 168 drivers in 56 vehicles has been officially published for the June 14 race.
Like the Lotus team currently in Formula One, the Lotus T129 uses the iconic British brand's name and colors but is actually built by a separate company. It previously ran a Lola chassis in the LMP2-class (pictured above). The Le Mans organizers claim the car will likely be on display during the 24-hour race, but it won't make it's competition debut until the World Endurance Championship round at the Circuit of the Americas in September. The T129 is being replaced by an Oreca 03 chassis with Nissan power in the LMP2 class, entered by Millennium Racing.
The Lotus' retirement came as the teams had to send in the names of the three drivers nominated to race each car. This year there are racers from 26 countries with the most coming from France (39), Britain (29), the US (17) and Italy (15). The latest tally of entries breaks down to 9 LMP1s, 19 LMP2s, 9 LM GTE Pros, 18 LM GTE Ams and the Nissan ZEOD RC as the experimental Garage 56 entry.

Race Recap: 2013 Japanese Grand Prix flips several scripts [spoilers]

Japan's Suzuka circuit is a great track that all the drivers love, but it doesn't usually provide the most thrilling, head-to-head racing. Where it does excel, however, is with surprises and "What just happened there?!" moments, and this year it was no different.
It started with Mark Webber in his Infiniti Red Bull Racing out-qualifying his teammate Sebastian Vettel for the first time this year. They were followed closely by Lewis Hamilton in the first Mercedes-AMG Petronas, the still-solid Romain Grosjean again outdoing teammate Kimi Räikkönen, Felipe Massa racing for another seat in Formula One and putting his Ferrari in fifth, then Nico Rosberg in the second Mercedes, Nico Hülkenberg in the first Sauber, Fernando Alonso in the second Ferrari, and Räikkönen continuing to do himself no favors by qualifying tenth.
For the second year in a row, the lights going out was the cue to start the first corner action...

Lotus names Jean-Marc Gales as new CEO

It's been about two years since DRB-Hicom took over Proton, and through it Lotus. One of its first courses of action was to fire the existing CEO, Dany Bahar, and proceed to scrap most if not all of his (arguably over-) ambitious plans. In his place they put one of their own - Aslam Farikullah - as Chief Operation Officer, but now the Malaysian-owned British automaker has attracted an industry heavyweight to lead it into the future.
That heavyweight is Jean-Marc Gales. The British- and German-educated Luxembourgian has spent the past couple of years running the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA), but may be better known for his previous posting as CEO of PSA Peugeot Citroën between 2009 and 2012, during which time he introduced the Citroën DS line, amongst others, and increased the French automaker's sales. Before PSA he worked for Daimler, General Motors and Volkswagen.
As the new Chief Executive Officer of Group Lotus, Gales will face the difficult task of growing a business based on three models - the Elise, Exige and Evora - that date back to 1996, 2000 and 2009, respectively. Whether he'll push for new models like his predecessor did remains to be seen, but he'd be wise to learn from Bahar's mistakes and avoid overextending what has always been a relatively small automaker.