Lotus avait annoncé à l'aube du début de saison effectuer son retour en Indycar via, dans un premier temps, le sponsoring d'une voiture du KV Racing, celle de Takuma Sato, accompagné d'une décoration renvoyant à la voiture de Jim Clark à Indianapolis au début des années 60. L'accord ne portait pas sur la première course, mais devient actif pour celle de St Petersbug ce week-end. Pour l'occasion, Lotus a diffusé cette fois de vraies photos de la voiture avec Taku. A noter, la disparition de la mention de Cosworth depuis la première image il y a deux semaines. Pour ne pas fâcher Honda, fournisseur actuel du moteur de la voiture ?

Pour les détails des faits d'armes de Lotus dans la discipline américaine rien ne vaut une consultation de la note de JJO sur le sujet, car le communiqué de presse de Lotus sur le sujet est avare en références historiques. Ou plutôt, il est prolixe en références historiques, mais du genre musical. Pour une fois, nous reprenons ci-dessous le texte dans la langue de Shakespeare qui contient pas moins de 10 titres de chansons des Sixties. Une façon originale d'accompagner le retour de la livrée verte et jaune d'époque :

Back To The Future - Lotus Aims For Ultimate SATISFACTION In IndyCar

The Sixties – What an era! A time of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys – and when Lotus put some noise to the roaring sixties with their sensational IndyCar innovations with more than a little HELP from the legendary Jim Clark. Proving that vintage isn’t a bad thing as our music heroes get older, the classic racing green and yellow Lotus makes a welcome return to IndyCar this weekend in St. Petersburg/USA.

Eagle-eyed racing fans will be hard pressed to miss the stunning new Lotus livery as it’s set to send GOOD VIBRATIONS through the IndyCar paddock in St Petersburg. The striking livery is based on the original Lotus IndyCar of the sixties driven by racing legend Jim Clark and is the result of many A HARD DAY’S NIGHT by the creative graphics team from the UK based owner.

The more mature IndyCar fan out there CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE and may remember these colours when Lotus competed for a number of years, winning the Indy 500 outright in 1965 with the ground-breaking Lotus Type 38 driven by Jim Clark and his talented GOLDFINGER(S).

Taking over the reigns, former F1 driver, Japan’s Takuma Sato got his TICKET TO RIDE the new Lotus ahead of the start of the 2010 IndyCar season. The first round of the IZOD IndyCar series, the Sao Paulo Indy 300, then saw Lotus competing together with established IndyCar competitors, KV Racing Technology, as the IndyCar rookie took to the track in the new car minus the new Lotus livery.

Now in St. Petersburg Lotus is back in the original colours for the first time and Taku, as he’s known to fans, and Lotus aim to make their mark on IndyCar. Commenting on his appointment Sato said: “Someone said to me “YOU’VE LOST THAT LOVING FEELING” but that’s not true. It is very exciting for me to drive for such an iconic car manufacturer. Lotus has enjoyed great success over the years, and I hope I can reward the team’s faith in me with success on track.”

Claudio Berro, Director of Lotus Motorsport added: “It’s fair to say that I’M A BELIEVER that we will immediately be a force to be reckoned with.”

Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus plc said: “Racing has always defined us and on many occasions in motorsport history Lotus innovations have redefined racing. We will hopefully bring our unique brand of innovations back to IndyCar where we will be pulling out all the stops working EIGHT DAYS A WEEK to achieve our goals.”

Source : Lotus Cars

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Lotus de retour en Indycar