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The Stig bungees a Lotus F1 car in Durban

Remember a couple of months ago when a mischievous Stig broke into the Lotus racing headquarters in Enstone and made off with an F1 car? Well, now we know where he went with it.
In this humorous clip from Top Gear, the tamed racing driver in the white suit disembarks with Pastor Maldonado's Lotus-Renault E22 (not the E21 he took from the team's headquarters, eagle-eye viewers might notice) in Durban, South Africa, and takes it to Moses Mabhida Stadium for the Top Gear Festival. After having some fun on a dirt bike, a chrome Mustang drift car and a few other curiosities, he hooks it up to a bungee cord and jumps off a tower behind the wheel.
Now we're not quite convinced they actually did this and that it wasn't all CGI, but it's still worth a watch and a laugh.

Lotus stepping up to LMP1 in World Endurance Championship

Only a couple of years ago, it looked like the top tier of prototype endurance racing was in trouble. Peugeot shut down its program, leaving the LMP1 category all to Audi to dominate. Only six cars entered the Petit Le Mans in 2012, and the season was cut short. But the top class in the FIA World Endurance Championship has since blossomed. And it only looks poised to grow further.
Audi and Toyota will each be back on the grid this season, joined by Porsche. But the latest news has Lotus stepping up to the big leagues also. (Well, sorta: the German-run squad uses the Lotus name and colors, but has no more to do with the automaker than the Formula One team of the same name.)
The Lotus LMP1 will be based on the same Lola-based T129 chassis used until now in the LMP2 class, with former F1 driver Christijan Albers leading the driver lineup. In addition to Audi, Toyota and Porsche, the solitary Lotus entry will also compete against privateer Rebellion Racing in a nine-car LMP1 grid throughout the season.

Lotus F1 apologizes for tweeting support for LGBT Olympians

The Lotus Formula One Team is apologizing after its official Twitter account posted this image of two men kissing in connection to the opening of the Winter Olympics on Friday, February 7. It claims that the original tweet was "unauthorized."
The tweet, which Lotus deleted later that day, can be viewed to the right and was promptly replaced an apology that said, "We would like to sincerely apologise for an unauthorized message posted on our Twitter account today & will ensure this cannot happen again." Responses to the kerfuffle on its Twitter page have mostly focused on confusion as to what the original tweet was and why it was removed.
While the Sochi Olympics have been controversial among LBGT groups because of Russia's laws banning so-called "gay propaganda," the country has a growing importance in F1. In fact, the first Russian Grand Prix is scheduled to run later this season on a circuit around the Sochi Olympic Park. Genii Capital, the team's owner, has business interests in Russia, and according to the BBC, the Lotus F1 team is working on a deal to with Russian mobile phone company Yotaphone to sell it 10 percent of the team.