No Reserve - 2012 Evora Ips Executive Demo, Carbon Grey/cognac on 2040-cars

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2015 Belgian Grand Prix is a return to scheduled programming

With summer intermission over, the second half of the Formula One season commenced in the Belgian countryside at Spa-Francorchamps. After qualifying, it looked a lot like the first half of the season with just a few minor changes. Lewis Hamilton was even more dominant in his Mercedes-AMG Petronas than usual, regularly taking half a second out of his teammate in just the middle sector of the circuit. Teammate Nico Rosberg tightened it up a tad for his final hot lap, but Hamilton still took pole by 0.45 seconds ahead of Rosberg in second. With his Williams back at a power track, Valtteri Bottas got himself up to third, although more than a second behind Hamilton. Romain Grosjean in the Lotus in fourth had his best qualifying performance since his fourth-place grid spot at the 2013 US Grand Prix. This was a huge boon for Lotus, the team facing another financial issue off track that threatened to have its cars impounded as soon as they left the circuit. Grosjean had to have his gearbox changed before the conclusion of six races, however, so the five-spot penalty meant he'd actually line up ninth for the race. Sergio Perez put the Sahara Force India in fifth, where we're more used to seeing his teammate Nico Hulkenberg, just ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in the Infiniti Red Bull Racing in sixth. Felipe Massa got the second Williams in seventh, in front of the second Lotus of Pastor Maldonado in eighth. Then came the first and only Ferrari in the top ten, Sebastian Vettel qualifying ninth after a disappointing Saturday for the scuderia; teammate Kimi Raikkonen suffered gearbox issues and qualified way down in 16th. Carlos Sainz took tenth in the Toro Rosso. A new start procedure in Belgium meant drivers had to handle clutches on their own, without the engineers finely tuning bite points between the garage and the start line. That was in conjunction with another rule limiting the kinds of radio messages possible between engineers and drivers, aiming to put more of the car in the drivers' hands. After an aborted start when Hulkenberg's car quit while sitting on the grid, Hamilton made the most of the new procedure. His start wasn't amazing but he beat everyone else off the line, while those behind were alternately getting bogged down or leaping ahead. Midway through the first lap the top ten was Hamilton, Perez, Ricciardo, Bottas, Rosberg, Vettel, Maldonado, Grosjean, Massa, Marcus Ericsson. At the end of 43 laps, Hamilton would still be in the lead.

Lotus supposedly working up a new Elan, again

Geely's investment in Volvo, and giving Volvo the freedom to do what Volvo knows how to do, propelled the Swedish automaker to another level. This could be the year English automaker Lotus begins the same climb. Late last year, Bloomberg said Geely committed an initial $2 billion to the Lotus renaissance. That number was low, the Financial Times reporting Geely planned to invest billions over the next five years. In May this year, Lotus announced it was hiring 200 new engineers and opening a new engineering center to develop a new range of SUVs, GTs, and sedans that would expand consumer appeal to triple its current annual volume. Sports cars are a vital part of the new mix as well, Autocar citing Lotus insiders for a report that a new Elan convertible sports car has "a strong possibility of being revived in the next few years" as a nameplate.    Lotus made a splash about bringing back the Elan — along with a new Esprit, Eterne, Elise, Elite, and city car — at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. That was a very different Lotus, when Malaysian automaker Proton owned the English outfit and ex-Ferrari marketing honcho Dany Bahar manned the helm. In spite of promises of funding, the team at Hethel lurched through years of corporate drama and dire finances until Geely took over in 2017. The latest Elan whispers sketch a convertible targeting the Porsche 718 Boxster - Lotus in general has Porsche in its sights. The car pictured above is from the first re-animation of the Elan badge, from 1989 to 1995. A coming Elan would sit above the Elise in the lineup, with more space, amenities, and luxury, at the same time as it would focus on being the lightest and most agile in the segment. Before that arrives, however, Lotus needs to finish developing the sports car platform that will help carry the brand's new range for the next decade; The Lotus SUV uses Volvo's SPA architecture that carries the XC90 and XC60. CEO Phil Popham's Vision-80 program — which now seeks to grow annual volume not merely triple but six-fold to 10,000 cars by 2029 — will be centered around the multi-material architecture that replaces the Elise and Evora architectures presently employed. Due in two years, the rivet-bonded "alloy-core" chassis will likely include carbon fiber and other advanced materials.

Coca-Cola returning to F1 with Lotus sponsorship [w/videos]

Even before Red Bull Racing became a record-breaking three-time Constructor's Champion in Formula One, it has dominated conversations both as a team and as an energy drink. After seven years of "Red Bull this" and "Red Bull that," Coca-Cola is reportedly ready to jump into the F1 fray with its Sweden-based energy drink Burn.
Rumors had placed Coca-Cola's entry with McLaren F1, but it's actually Lotus that has secured the deal. We have no idea what the sponsorship will look like, but the website for Burn says that "We [intend] to foster that creativity by incorporating art and music in a way that will break the conventions of traditional F1 sponsorship," Lotus F1 team principal Eric Boullier adding "We are excited to partner with burn to build a new and innovative model for sponsorships that will combine experiences, content creation and social media..."
Since most - including this writer - have no idea what Burn is, we've included a couple of Burn commercial spots to help get us up to speed, which you'll find below. The 2012 season hasn't even ended, and we're already looking forward to 2013...