Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Thursday that Lotus would build engines for the IZOD IndyCar Series’ new 2012 formula. Few details were revealed at the announcement, including who will design and build the engine, although Bahar’s comments suggest Lotus would do the work on its own without a partner like Cosworth.

“What we’re trying to do with the Lotus brand is leverage our heritage, which is all about motor racing,” he said. “We’re taking racing seriously. We don’t just want to put a sticker on a car that we did not have an interest in building. We want to fight with the big guys.

“We started this year with a very small activity with Takuma Sato in the KV Technology team. It was just one car to understand Indycar racing. It was an opportunity for us to become a real contender. The series is developing well and I think it fits perfectly with our abilities and strategy in the US, which is our biggest market.

“So we took the decision to build our own engine. By doing that we are going to be the underdogs fighting Chevy and Honda. But that’s fine. It’s all about competition.”

Bahar confirmed that Lotus would develop its own ‘aero kit’ for 2012. “We will be designing our own chassis and own aero kit,” he said. “We want to compete by designing our own cars and hope other teams can profit from our design. We’ve started already investing in developing the right aero kit and engine for 2012.”

Bahar also said that as many as four Indycars will run in Lotus colours next year. “We’ll be expanding our activities in IndyCar with our partner KV Technology. There will probably be three or even more cars in our livery.”

Kevin Kalkhoven owns the KV team with former driver Jimmy Vasser. He also owns Cosworth in partnership with Jerry Forsythe. Kalkhoven was conspicuous by his absence from Thursday’s Lotus engine announcement and did not respond to requests to comment on the news. So we await further details with interest.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

This year’s Rolex 24 hours at Daytona produced a similar result to last year with a Brumos Porsche winning from one of Chip Ganassi’s two cars, but without 2009’s drama when Juan Pablo Montoya battled fiercely with David Donohue. The closing hours of this year’s race were disappointingly flat as the lead car driven by Terry Borcheller/Joao Barbosa/Mike Rockenfeller/Ryan Dalziel maintained a comfortable half-lap cushion over its only remaining challenger, Ganassi’s Riley-BMW driven by Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas/Justin Wilson/Max Papis. Wilson had to pit unexpectedly during the final hour when he felt a violent bang from beneath the car, enabling the Brumos Porsche to win by 52 seconds.

It was a classic long-distance victory in that the winning car was the only Daytona Prototype to run the race essentially trouble-free, although the drivers did have to struggle with a sticking throttle and clutch failure. Faultless driving and pitwork were key to their success.

“I didn’t expect that we would be there at the end,” said Rockenfeller. “We were struggling with the handling most of the weekend but the team did a really good job to fix the car. We were pretty much changing everything on the set-up before the race. We didn’t know what to expect, but the car as perfect.”

Added Dalziel: “All four of us went into this race with a major unknown. We were pretty lost in practice but I knew if we could be reliable we’d be there at the end, and after the first couple of hours it was obvious we were fast. We never went off track or had any mechanical problems and I think this is a huge achievement for a new team.”

The winning Riley-Porsche was built and prepared at the Brumos team’s race shop in North Carolina under Mike Colluci’s direction, but the car was entered under the Action Express Racing moniker. The tough economic times compelled Brumos to lay off a number of employees at its dealerships last year, resulting in a decision to run just one rather than two Grand-Am cars in 2010. In turn the race team took the opportunity to build a different car powered by a Cayenne-based V8 built in California by the Lozano Brothers.

Built around a Riley chassis similar to last year’s winner and powered by a conventional Porsche engine, the new combination was turned out in off-white with a German flag down the middle. Colucci and Brumos also brought in veteran NASCAR crew chief and technical man Gary Nelson to help run the car.

Finishing third, four laps down, was the NPN Racing Riley-BMW driven by Scott Tucker/Ryan Hunter-Reay/Lucas Luhr/Richard Westbrook. Fourth, another 16 laps down, was Tracy Krohn’s Lola-Ford driven by Krohn/Nic Jonson/Ricardo Zonta/Colin Braun.

Among those out of luck were Ganassi’s second Riley-BMW driven by Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Scott Dixon/Jamie McMurray (above), which led more than 140 laps before blowing an engine. The Riley-Porsche of last year’s winner, Brumos Racing, blew its flat-six motor after 20 hours while defending Grand-Am champions Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty and Daytona team-mates Jimmie Johnson (below)/Jimmy Vasser ran into a variety of problems, finally succumbing to a broken oil pump. Also out of luck were Wayne Taylor’s SunTrust Dallara-Ford and Mike Shank’s pair of Riley-Fords. This trio swept the top three places in qualifying but ran into various troubles in the race and finished fifth, sixth and seventh.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Last year’s season-opening Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona featured a tremendous battle through the final three hours between Juan Pablo Montoya and David Donohue. Donohue scored the biggest win of his career as the 42-year-old overcame Montoya’s unrelenting efforts, using his Riley-Porsche’s superior power to take the lead from Montoya with 40 minutes to go and holding on to win one of the most exciting Rolex 24 Hour finishes in recent history by just 0.167sec.

Donohue’s Brumos Riley-Porsche is again among the favourites to win this year’s race, as is Montoya, who returns with Chip Ganassi’s two-car team of star-studded drivers including Dario and Marino Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Justin Wilson, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas. Ganassi’s team won the race three years in a row from 2006-08 but has switched from Lexus to BMW engines this year.

Another favourite is Bob Stallings’s Grand-Am championship-winning Gainsco team. Once again defending champions Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty will be joined at Daytona by four-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and former CART champion Jimmy Vasser. The Rolex 24 is one of the few Grand-Am races the team has not won, but Gurney is optimistic about its chances at Daytona.

“Obviously it’s a really big challenge,” he says. “Ganassi has won that race a lot of times and we’ve learned a lot from watching those guys. I think that race tests how good your team is more than any other. There are so many things involved and you’ve got to be on top of everything. Just knowing the things that [can] break on the car and having disciplined drivers who stay out of trouble, all those things are going to make a difference. I think we’re in a position where we’re ready to win it. We’ve got all our ducks in a row.”

The team’s only change for 2010 is a switch from Pontiac to Chevrolet engines, a change in branding rather than equipment. “Last year showed you need the power when three or four cars are on the lead lap and you need to pass,” says Fogarty. “It’s so tough. You need everything going for you to win that race.”

Team owner Bob Stallings is very impressed with NASCAR champion Johnson (below). “Jimmie is a really talented driver,” he says. “The first time we put Jimmie in the car it was raining and I was scared to death because I didn’t know if a Cup driver could drive in the rain. And he was awesome, just really outstanding. He’s fascinated by our kind of racing. He feels that when he gets in our car he has a chance to win.”

Gurney couldn’t be happier to have Johnson and Vasser back for Daytona. “It’s definitely a good thing,” he says. “There are no unknowns and that makes a big difference for this race. We don’t have to worry about how these guys fit in the car or how the driver changes work. It makes it a lot easier and we’ll all be less highly-strung.”

Fogarty agrees: “Having Jimmie and Jimmy back, the same old crew, is great. They’re both super-capable and they both want to win it really badly.”

The weather forecast for northern Florida this weekend is for clear skies and mild temperatures, so the race should be run in ideal conditions under a full moon. Here’s hoping for another fierce battle and an interesting result.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

After the usual two weekends of qualifying the 93rd Indianapolis 500 takes place on Sunday. This year’s race looks like being another Penske versus Ganassi battle, but with everyone aboard roughly similar Dallara-Hondas there’s sure to be a long line of cars in the hunt. And, of course, almost anything can happen in a 500-mile oval race with an inevitable multiplicity of full-course yellows.

Team Penske has three cars in this year’s 500, with Hélio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe starting first and second and Will Power on the outside of row three. Penske’s cars are very strong and the team is chasing its 15th win at Indy to compliment its 15th pole earned by Castroneves.

The Brazilian is in his 10th year with Penske and is looking for his third 500 victory. He scored back-to-back wins in 2001-02, and Hélio is highly motivated following his acquittal on federal tax charges. Team-mate Briscoe is in his second year with Penske’s Indycar team and this will be his fourth 500. The 27-year-old Australian has won on ovals and has the experience and equipment to chase victory.

Countryman Power makes his second start at Indy and his first with Penske. At this stage, having been hired to fill Castroneves’s seat while the latter was occupied with his tax case, Power will not race again in this year’s IRL after the 500. So the taciturn but talented Power will be eager to do well on Sunday.

Chip Ganassi’s team is as strong as ever with the 2007 and ’08 Indy winners, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon, starting from third and fifth on the grid, while 2007 Indy Lights champion Alex Lloyd starts from row four in a third Ganassi satellite car run by Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

Franchitti and Dixon were slightly off the pace in qualifying but are sure to be in the thick of it on race day. Both have the experience, speed and are race-savvy, while team manager Mike Hull and team owner Ganassi are equally as good as Roger Penske and his racing chief Tim Cindric at playing the strategic games required as the race and yellow flags unfold. So Castroneves, Briscoe, Franchitti and Dixon are equal favourites to win this year’s 500, with Power on slightly longer odds.

The IRL’s third big team is Andretti-Green Racing, winner of the 500 with Franchitti in 2007 and Dan Wheldon in ’05. But the four-car AGR team has looked second best at Indy this year, with team leader Tony Kanaan struggling for speed in his car and resorting to a back-up in qualifying. Still, Kanaan starts from the outside of row two and is a racer who’s entirely capable of stealing his first Indy win.

The odds are longer on AGR’s three other drivers – Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick and Hideki Mutoh, who will start the race respectively from eighth, 10th and 16th. Young Andretti came close to winning in 2006 but has been less impressive over the past 18 months, struggling in the midfield on most road circuits and in street races. Marco is at his best on ovals, Indianapolis in particular, and needs a solid result. Patrick is also at her best on the big speedway and will be trying hard for a good result in what many believe will be her last 500 before switching to NASCAR next year.

Newman/Haas/Lanigan’s Graham Rahal is most likely to cause the biggest upset of the day. The mature Rahal, 19, has done an excellent job in his second year at Indy to qualify fourth, splitting Franchitti and Dixon. I’ve known Graham since he was a kid, so I’m prejudiced, but I believe he’s the most talented, disciplined and most complete of today’s young American open-wheel racers. With any luck he’ll show all those strengths on Sunday.

New NHL team-mate Robert Doornbos had a rough initiation, crashing twice after looking good through the opening days of practice. He recovered well to record the fastest qualifying run on the second weekend and starts 23rd.

Who else might figure in the 93rd 500? Paul Tracy is an obvious choice. He will make his second Indy start in 14 years from 13th, in the middle of the field. Paul finished an unhappy second to Castroneves in 2002 and is trying to salvage his career with Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser’s KV Racing team.

Other dark horses include Brits Justin Wilson and Dan Wheldon, who will start 15th and 18th, and Brazilian Mario Moraes, who makes his second Indy start aboard a KV Racing entry from the inside of row three. Neither Wilson nor Wheldon are with first-class teams, but the unheralded Moraes looked good in practice and qualifying and may surprise on race day.

Also worth watching are fastest rookie qualifier Raphael Matos, who starts from the outside of row four, and Champ Car veteran Oriol Servia, who qualified Bobby Rahal’s car after minimal practice. He starts from row nine.

The only practice session this week is Friday’s ‘Carburetion Day’ followed by an Indy Lights race and pitstop competition. The 200-lap, 500-mile race takes the green flag on Sunday at 1pm EST.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

This weekend should be quite a thrash at Indianapolis as everyone who failed last weekend to make the field for this year’s 92nd Indy 500 tries to take one of the remaining twenty-two places in the starting line-up. Chip Ganassi’s drivers and team put on a great show last Saturday to beat Team Penske and Andretti-Green Racing to this year’s Indy 500 pole. Scott Dixon (below) and Dan Wheldon qualified one-two with a pair of mid and late-afternoon second attempts which pushed Ryan Briscoe to the outside of the front row ahead of team-mate Helio Castroneves who will start the race from the inside of row two.

This was Dixon’s eleventh IRL pole but his first at Indy and the first time a Ganassi car has been on the pole at Indy since Bruno Junqueira (below) turned the trick in 2002. The team’s one-two sweep also was a bit of redemption for Ganassi’s team after enduring an unhappy pole day last year.

A disappointed Andretti-Green team couldn’t hit the right combination for qualifying but the team’s four cars will still start fifth (Danica Patrick – below), sixth (Tony Kanaan), seventh (Marco Andretti), and ninth (Hideki Mutoh). With last Sunday’s rainout only the first day’s eleven qualifiers are set for the 92nd Indy 500. The other three are Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira in ninth, Vision’s Ed Carpenter in tenth with Luczo-Dragon’s Tomas Scheckter completing the first day’s qualifiers. Only eight other drivers made full, four-lap qualifying runs on the rain-shortened opening weekend at Indianapolis and despite the unification of Indy car racing it will be a struggle to fill the field with thirty-three reputable cars and drivers.

Meanwhile, Ganassi’s team appears in good shape to make a serious run at winning its first Indy 500 in eight years, since Juan Montoya dominated the race back in 2000. Dixon was second last year, of course, and Wheldon finished fourth in ’06, his first year with Ganassi’s team. Ganassi’s managing director Mike Hull (below with Scott Dixon) compares the working partnership enjoyed by Dixon and Wheldon to the team’s great days ten years ago with Alex Zanardi and Jimmy Vasser.

“Zanardi and Vasser were meant for each other at that point in time, and I think Dixon and Wheldon are meant for each other at this point in time,” Hull remarked. “They aren’t anything alike, except for one common thread – they both want to be better today than they were yesterday. They haven’t lost sight of where they came from and they don’t feed off each other. They learn from each other. Their diversity in approach is probably a benefit. That’s certainly helped us in the past, like with Zanardi and Vasser.

“The more unselfish you can be as a team-mate, or for that matter, a team member, the more your eyes are open each day to learning. And that’s what Scott and Dan have in common. If they can continue down that path, no matter what they do with their lives, they can look back and say they achieved a lot, and that’s where they are as two people racing for us today. Their driving styles are a bit different, but they’ve learned to compare their styles to understand how to help each other.”

Hull says Dixon and Wheldon (above) have learned to drive their cars loose with the tail out in qualifying.

“In order to achieve a really fast lap at Indianapolis it takes a lot of experience,” Hull observes. “You can give somebody the setup that Chip Ganassi Racing had on Saturday afternoon and the driver may be able to drive the race car, but can he drive the car across the short chutes the right way to get the speed that he needs? Scott and Dan have got to the point in their careers where they can do that and they’re doing it together and that compounds your ability to get to the next level.”

As Dixon, Wheldon and the other top eleven qualifiers prepared this week for May 25th’s 500-mile race, the rest of the field – all the former Champ Car teams included – have been preoccupied with simply finding the speed necessary to make the race. Don’t expect any of them to come close to challenging the established IRL teams at Indianapolis this year.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Last week, following Graham Rahal’s (above) inspired victory in his first IRL race in the streets of St Petersburg, team owner Carl Haas (below) was in the best spirits he’s been in for months. Like all the former Champ Car teams, Newman/Haas/Lanigan has been up to its elbows in a serious thrash over the past two months re-building old Dallara-Hondas or building new cars from parts. So it was particularly sweet for Champ Car’s most successful team to win in St Pete with its talented, teen-aged driver.

“Graham did a tremendous job and Justin (Wilson) (below) was very quick,” Haas said. “Justin had a real chance to win the thing, but he caught-out by the yellows and the pit strategy. It’s too bad because he was very quick.

“It was great for the team because everyone has really worked their tails off,” Haas added. “But there’s a lot to do. We’ve got two more cars to build before Indy next month and it’s going to be tough on the ovals. The top guys have got five or six years of running on us. It’s good to know we can run strong with these cars on a street circuit, but the ovals are completely different. We don’t have any data or information to work from.”

Haas said everyone in his team is delighted to be part of the IRL’s unified Indycar series. “It’s been very, very difficult for the teams from Champ Car to make the change in such a short period of time,” Haas acknowledged. “But people are really loving the fact that it’s just one series and we’re all racing together again. I think it’s going to be a lot better for Indycar racing. There was so much confusion. Nobody knew who was what and the whole thing lost all its identity. This unification had to happen and it’s going to be a good thing for the sport.”

But Haas has his reservations about next weekend’s Long Beach GP where the former Champ Car teams will give their Panoz-Cosworths one last hurrah while the IRL regulars are racing at Motegi in Japan. “I hope Long Beach works out,” Haas remarked. “It’s a terrible way to have to do it and I’m not sure how the people – the fans – are going to feel about it.”

We were assured last week that twenty cars will be on the grid at Long Beach, including former winner Jimmy Vasser. But four-time Long Beach winner Paul Tracy apparently will not be in the field as he struggles to resolve his contract dispute with Jerry Forsythe.

“As far as I know, I’m not driving,” Tracy said. “I’ve told the team that I’m more than happy to do Long Beach, but they don’t want to acknowledge there’s a termination clause in the contract. Nobody has told me anything.”

As Carl Haas says, it will be interesting to see how the fans react to Champ Car’s swansong in the streets of Long Beach next weekend.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

It was sad to talk last week with each of Derrick Walker (above), Paul Tracy (below) and Carl Haas. All three had tales of woe to tell about how the fallout from Champ Car’s demise has affected them. Walker’s team finds itself without the sponsorship to be able to race in this year’s unified IRL series, Tracy is out of a ride and has no idea what or even if he will race this year, and Haas admits to losing a pile of money on his investment in Panoz DP01 parts and equipment.

As everyone knows, Walker has lost his sponsor and driver Will Power to the renamed KV Racing Technology team and is going to court to attempt to get some restitution from Craig Gore. Walker has not laid-off any employees and will run three Atlantic cars this year but he’s looking at diversifying into the A1GP series or sports car racing or any other sensible form of motor sport that will pay the bills.

Meanwhile, Paul Tracy awaits word from Jerry Forsythe about how Tracy might buy his way out of his multi-year contract or find some other resolution to his dilemma. At the moment Tracy is a pedestrian, without a ride in the IRL. He’s assuming, but doesn’t know if he’ll race at Long Beach. “I feel like I’m standing on the platform and the train’s driving off,” Tracy remarked. “I feel like the guy who got a new suit for the big date and I’m primed and ready for the prom, and she didn’t show up.”

And then there’s Carl Haas (above), a proud man who, with his partner Paul Newman, built one of America’s most accomplished and respected race teams. Over half a century Haas has made his living entirely from racing, selling cars, parts and service to all kinds of formulas and categories. Haas admitted last week that he has lost more than two millions dollars on his investment in Champ Car’s failed Panoz spec-car project. Like Walker, Haas has remained loyal to his people and he has not laid-off any employees.

The good news is that Cristiano da Matta (above) enjoyed a very good first run in a race car last week since his near-fatal accident at Elkhart Lake in the summer of 2006. Da Matta tested one of Bob Stallings’ Gainsco Riley-Pontiac Grand-Am cars at the new 2.5-mile Eagles Canyon road circuit in Texas and after two days and around 140 laps Cristiano was bubbling with enthusiasm. Da Matta will make his return to racing at Laguna Seca in May, driving a second Stallings’ Grand-Am car beside series champions Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty. Da Matta will share his car with old friend and former team-mate Jimmy Vasser.

“It will be a good way to get back,” da Matta remarked. “I won’t be able to fight for the championship this year, but just to get back to it and next year be serious about the job of going for the championship, it’s very exciting. And to do it with Jimmy who is not only a very good driver but also a very good friend of mine – and he’s also very fired-up about it – it’s like a dream.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine