2006 Lotus Exige - Supercharged on 2040-cars

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Lotus signs Pastor Maldonado to replace Raikkonen

The team currently known as Lotus has had a long string of accomplished drivers behind the wheel, including world champions like Nelson Piquet, Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen. But Kimi is returning to Ferrari next season, leaving a big question mark over who would fill his seat. And now we have our answer.
Lotus has just announced that it has signed Pastor Maldonado to partner with Romain Grosjean for next season. The surprise winner of the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix has been driving for Williams for the past three seasons, signed after he won the GP2 title in 2010. Though lauded as an emerging talent, Maldonado is clearly not the accomplished champion Raikkonen is, however Lotus apparently needs the money which Maldonado brings with him in the form of sponsorship from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
Meanwhile, Romain Grosjean, also a former GP2 champion, has been with the team for some time now, starting as its test driver in 2008, promoted for one season to the race seat in 2009, and returning again in 2012. He's been the second driver at Lotus ever since, achieving career-best second-place finishes at the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix and 2013 United States Grand Prix. Whether it will be Grosjean (who gets the higher number) or Maldonado that emerges as the dominant force at Lotus remains to be seen. Scroll down for the complete press release.

Race Recap: 2014 Spanish Grand Prix is boom and bust [spoilers]

The Spanish Grand Prix's 2.892-mile Circuit de Catalunya is considered a preview for the rest of the season, since it's a combination of long front straight and twisting middle sectors mimic sections from every other Formula One track to follow. After the long break following the flyaway races to open the season, teams and fans have also been looking forward to this race to see if anyone had a realistic hope of catching Mercedes AMG Petronas; Infiniti Red Bull Racing honcho Christian Horner boiled his team's outlook for the season down to the line, "We've got to [beat them in Spain] if we're going to make a championship of it."
If we take that as our starting point then the weekend began as a bust. Lewis Hamilton only just beat Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg for pole, the Brit's final effort getting him 0.178 seconds clear of the German. Daniel Ricciardo, proving Red Bull is at least the best of the rest, took third but did so more than a second behind Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas of Williams lined up fourth, almost 1.5 second behind and Romain Grosjean delivered overdue good news for Lotus by taking fifth on the grid, more than 1.7 seconds behind pole. Kimi Räikkönen in sixth outqualified his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso in seventh, but he couldn't be happy about it because the Ferraris were nearly two seconds behind, and Jenson Button in eighth in the McLaren was more than two second behind. Felipe Massa put the second Williams in ninth, and Sebastian Vettel overcame a terrible start to the weekend to make it into Q3, then didn't set a time when his gearbox failed, then got dropped five places to 15th on the grid when the gearbox had to be changed.
When the lights went out, then came the boom...

EVO "2012 Car of the Year: The Track Battles" is a sports car salmagundi

EVO has come out with another gotta-watch-it video, throwing its 2012 Car of the Year contestants around the UK's 1.5-mile Blyton Park track. It's actually a 15-minute teaser for the full-length DVD detailing the magazine's Car of the Year selection, but the tease is worth every penny free second.
Tiff Needell and sports car racer Richard Meaden handle the wheel duties, the two driving five pairs of sports cars: Lotus Exige S vs. Porsche Boxster S, Morgan Three-Wheeler vs. Toyota GT86, BMW M135i vs. Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series vs. Alpina B3 GT3, the marquee event pits the McLaren MP4-12C vs. the Pagani Huayra. After a head-to-head lap with commentary during drifts, Meaden takes each car out to set a representative lap time.
You'll find the verdicts, lots of tire smoke, and lines like "Anything you can do sideways I can do sideways" in the video below.