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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.

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 plans detuned Evora sans supercharger for US market

We may never see a new version of the Elise or Exige in the United States, but the legendary British marque has been steadily rolling out new versions of the Evora 2+2 sports car. According to Automotive News, the automaker based in Hethel is planning a detuned version of the Evora to help it get in line with US emissions regulations. "Over a five-year period in the U.S. we have to show a 3 percent per year reduction in carbon dioxide emissions," Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales told AN. "One option is remove the supercharger." Gales apparently feels that's a better option than downsizing to a 2.0-liter turbo four, which would require more reconfiguration than simply removing the supercharger. The former Peugeot chief cites the example of another British sports car manufacturer in McLaren, which detuned the 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 from the 650S to slot into the 570S. In any event, the base Evora wouldn't be the only new version of the model we're expecting to see. The company recently rolled out the revised Evora 400, and revealed the even sharper Evora Sport 410 (pictured above) at the Geneva Motor Show last month. Lotus also has an Evora roadster in the works that's similarly targeted at the North American market. Following the base model, we wouldn't be surprised to see even more variants to follow. Related Video: