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2015 Spanish F1 Grand Prix makes its Deutsche mark

The first race of the European Formula One season inaugurates the second phase of the Championship. Teams overhaul their cars with the big updates they've been working on since Australia, and at the end of The Battle of Spain we find out how the positions on the field have changed. Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver Nico Rosberg brought a big update to his psychology, straight-up beating teammate Lewis Hamilton to take his first pole position of the season. Mercedes owns the front row and Ferrari maintains its status as primary challenger, Sebastian Vettel lining up in third. Williams proved it's been hitting the books to do better in class, though, Valtteri Bottas slotting into fourth. And Toro Rosso's visit to a track that rewards strong aero rewarded them with the best team grid position since the Italian Grand Prix in 2008: Carlos Sainz secured fifth, ahead of Max Verstappen in sixth. Kimi Raikkonen's bout of Saturday woes – it seems the Finn is always handicapped by lots of tiny issues – continued in Barcelona with one of his sets of prime tires getting cooked by malfunctioning tire warmers. He recovered well enough to take seventh on the grid, but he's got some strong competition ahead of him. He led three other drivers in the Continuous Issues department, Daniil Kvyat unable to wrestle his Infiniti Red Bull Racing higher than eighth, Williams driver Felipe Massa getting it wrong in Turn 3 to fall five places behind his teammate Bottas, and Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull enduring another engine change and sloppy car behavior to get tenth. And while it turned out to be a steady race a little rough around the edges, the positions on the battlefield just might have changed. A little. Of the 66 laps in the race we might have seen Rosberg for three of them – maybe. The German got a smashing start, had a clear lead into Turn 1, and after that we checked in occasionally during his two pit stops and again at the checkered flag. He owned the entire weekend the way we're used to seeing his teammate do, and the cameras left him alone to run his race. No one got within seven seconds of him during the first third, and as the pit stop strategies played out that cushion grew. He finished seventeen seconds ahead of Hamilton, and 45 seconds ahead of third-placed Vettel. Hamilton, on the back foot all three days, stumbled out of the gate.

Lotus suing former CEO Bahar over spending on homes, helicopters and watches

More details have come out about the legal suit and countersuit being contested between Lotus cars owner DRB-Hicom and former CEO of Lotus Dany Bahar. Bahar was brought in by Malaysian car company Proton in 2009 to turn Lotus around, and events during his tenure have made just about everyone wonder "What's going on?" That's not unusual - it can take a minute to figure things out when a new leader takes everything in a new direction - but in this case the clouds didn't clear quickly enough.
When the Malaysian government sold Proton to Malaysian auto supplier DRB-Hicom earlier this year, a forensic accounting team from Ernst & Young and The Rothschild Group started going over the books. Not long after, Bahar was suspended in June from his position and then fired. In his countersuit against DRB-Hicom, claims of lavish spending began to surface. Then the stories and leaks and rumors really began, the UK's Financial Mail reporting on more than one million pounds spent on private flights and home renovations, the New Zealand Herald talking about other executives sacked so that DRB could rearrange a 270-million-pound bank loan to Lotus, and rumors on forums about Bahar flying from his home in Norfolk to Hethel HQ and spending 30,000 pounds on motorsports books for his office.
In the latest Bloomberg report it is said that DRB-Hicom seeks 2.5 million pounds ($4 million US) from Bahar "for unauthorized expenses and overpaid salary and bonuses," including the purported expense of 3,000 pounds on watches for company managers. DRB-Hicom also says Bahar made damaging statements to the media, on top of breaching his contractual duties. Bahar's countersuit seeks $10.6 million from DRB-Hicom.

Lotus Evora comes in for a facelift

Lotus may have scrapped the ambitious product plans of its previous administration, but don't think it's going to try to skate by on an altogether unchanged lineup. It's preparing what promises to be some major updates for the Evora, which is a good thing because that's currently the only model Lotus offers in the States. And here's out first look at what's in store. It's hard to tell much with all the camouflage disguising it from prying eyes like ours, but you can see this Evora prototype is wearing a new front bumper and what appear to be reshaped side sills that could be redesigned to allow easier ingress and egress – not something for which low-slung Lotuses have been particularly well known in the past. A retuned version of the Toyota-sourced V6 engine is also said to be under the hood, and unburdened a bit by a cut in curb weight. The revised Evora is expected to make its debut next month at the Geneva Motor Show, paving the way for a potential convertible and even a crossover version down the road.