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Race Recap: 2013 Indian Grand Prix mostly calm with chances of Championships

The smog around the Buddh International Circuit got so bad over the weekend that the FIA had to change the practice sessions. Then the soft tires that Pirelli brought to be the options were found to degrade so quickly that teams had to change their qualifying and race strategies. The only man it didn't seem to affect was - guess who? - Sebastian Vettel, who put his Infiniti Red Bull Racing on pole position.
Behind him came Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas, Mark Webber in the second Infiniti Red Bull and on medium tires, Felipe Massa in the first Ferrari, Kimi Räikkönen in the first Lotus, Nico Hülkenberg in the first Sauber, Fernando Alonso in the second Ferrari, and the McLaren duo of Sergio Perez and Jenson Button. The tire strategizing didn't work out for Romain Grosjean in the second Lotus, who didn't get out of Q1 after only running the medium compound tire and lined up 17th.
The Indian Grand Prix has been held twice and Vettel has led every single lap of both races. If nothing else, we knew there would be at least one new thing about this Indian Grand Prix: there'd be a lap not led by Vettel since he qualified on softs and would have to pit before Webber and Alonso who were both on mediums.

Here's what else you could buy for the average new-car price of $40,573

Autoblog may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change. The average price of a new car in America hit a new record in December 2020: $40,573. Not that we're surprised — the average has been over $35,000 for the past few years — but seeing that baseline figure crest 40 large is still a sticker-shock to the system. So, as we do every once in a while, we put our collective heads together and came up with a list of alternatives that you could choose to buy for that sum, new or old, classic or practical. Now, let's be crystal clear about one thing here. We're not actually recommending you make this type of decision. That said, we wouldn't blame you if you did. Managing Editor Greg Rasa: $40,000 will buy a fully loaded Camry or moderately equipped crossover. Or, for $39,997, to be exact, one could go motoring in a fine British automobile. This 2006 Aston Martin DB9 Volante in Alabama has 21,452 miles on it, and depreciation has worked its cruel magic: It is listed for less than one-quarter of its $168,000 starting MSRP when it was new. A check of other used DB9s nationwide indicates this is a fair price. This Aston's CarFax reveals two owners. (One, really, as the second was a dealership. Looks like it got traded in for a Porsche.) If you're understandably concerned about reliability, its service history indicates no surprises to date. Remember, it has a 450-horsepower 5.9-liter V12. And spring is coming. Of course a used Aston Martin is riskier than a new Camry. But as Louis Prima sang, "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think." What price beauty? Less than $40 grand. Associate Editor Byron Hurd: This price point opens up a ton of options in the "nearly new" luxury space, including a few good enthusiast picks, but my nod here goes to the Cadillac ATS-V. The discontinued, M3/M4-rivaling, 465-horsepower sport sedan and coupe can be had all day long in this price range with low miles. In fact, the real challenge is finding one in the spec you want, since it's one of those old-fashioned cars that actually presented the buyer with choices. Here's a clean, six-speed sedan in an actual color for less than our target price, for example. Coupes are more plentiful than sedans, especially in interesting colors, but there are plenty of them out there.

Lotus working on a more spacious daily driver with a kinder price

Lotus has another sports car in the works, with a reveal planned for later this year or early next. It could be the second piece of the puzzle former Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales spoke of to Automotive News in 2018, saying parent company Geely "has approved three new models: Two sports cars and the third an SUV." The last new serial production car the English carmaker introduced was the Evora in 2009, the penultimate model in a four-car lineup in the UK that includes the Exige and Elise below, the Evija battery-electric hypercar above. Automotive News Europe writes that the coming sports car will be an "entry-level model" and "provide enough interior space for everyday use," based on an interview with new automaker CEO Phil Popham. Entry-level doesn't mean least expensive, though, rather a price range from GBP55,000 to GBP100,000, which is $68,000 to $123,670 in our money. Those figures would be entry-level here in the U.S., where the sole Lotus is the Evora GT and costs $96,950 before destination. In the UK, the Elise Sport 220 is priced at GBP41,655, the Elise Cup 250 at GBP49,555. For reference, a Porsche 718 Cayman begins at GBP44,790 over there, a Jaguar F-Type at GBP54,510.  The second sports car referenced a couple years ago isn't the Evija, if we can believe last month's report from Autocar. The magazine wrote there's a mid-engined hybrid coupe supposedly evoking the Esprit on the way, scheduled for debut the first half of next year. It will slot in above the Evora, which starts at GBP85,900 in GT410 Sport guise in the UK, and produce more than 500 horsepower with help from a mid-mounted Toyota-sourced V6.  Back to that entry-level car, the most surprising news is when AN writes it is "destined to be the company's last combustion-engine model." That begs the question, what happened to the SUV? Patent images of a Lotus people-hauler leaked in 2017, in 2018 the carmaker said the SUV would hit the market by 2022, and in the middle of last year spy shooters caught what we thought to be a Lotus SUV mule hidden under bodywork of Geely's Lync & Co 01. The AN piece mentioned that "Future options could also include SUV or sporting sedan, according to Popham." But if AN has it right about internal combustion engines, the SUV will be a surprise showing before the entry-level sports car, or will be electric.  And what would the end of ICE-powered models do to the chances of the lightweight revival models Lotus fans want?