Season three of the Lotus on Track Elise Trophy has just come to an end and Race.TV have put together a light hearted look back at those 80+ races. We should point out that no Animals or Children were hurt in the making of this programme, even if a few wallets are a little lighter. We are also trying to find out how much car numbers 4 and 99 paid to have their indiscretions left out.

The recent appointment by Lotus of a Director of Motorsport has led to speculation as to exactly what plans the company has for motorsport involvement. We of course already know that a return to the Formula 1 grids is planned for 2010, via the newly launched Lotus F1 Racing team, but in reality that has little to do with Hethel as it has been created by parent company Proton in Malaysia. We already have Lotus Cup Europe catering for the 211/Elise/Exige variants, and similar series such as Lotus Cup Japan and Cup Italia and of course there is L-o-T’s own highly successful Elise Trophy series, so what else is there? Well, there have been throwaway comments about Indycars, Le Mans and GT, and the latter is already underway with the Evora racecar project.

Evora racecar

Weeks, months of rumour, conjecture and innuendo finally came to an end yesterday, 15th September, when the FIA issued a simple press release announcing the fact that Lotus F1 Team – not Team Lotus, note – had been awarded the 13th team entry into the 2010 World Championship. But just who is behind the new team?

The team has been registered with the FIA as Lotus F1 Team, under the company name of 1Malaysia F1 Team Sdn Bhd and the team principal is Tony Fernandes, a 45-year-old Malaysian entrepreneur who currently owns budget airline Air Asia (presently a Williams sponsor) and a chain of hotels, amongst other things. He is British educated and began his working career with Virgin Records.

It’s an established fact that manufacturers hone the performance of their new models on Germany’s daunting Nurburgring Nordschleife track – and indeed that’s partially the reason why the track was created in the first place, back in the 1920’s – but it also has a significant place in the history of Lotus too. Not just as the scene of some epic Grand Prix performances or even for giving Evora development cars a pounding either.

Back in May 1962 the Essex Racing Team entered a Lotus 23 into the Nurburgring 1,000Km race for Jim Clark and Trevor Taylor to drive. Nothing too remarkable about that you might think, and the 350,000 spectators hardly noticed it amongst the mainly much bigger competition. They soon took notice at the end of the first lap though when Clark crossed the line some 27-seconds clear of the opposition! Helped by falling rain, he continued to extend his lead until he had an advantage of more than two minutes. By the eleventh lap Willy Mairesse’s 4-litre Ferrari had whittled that back down to 42-seconds, before news reached the pits that Clark had left the circuit halfway around the lap, at Hocheichen, still more than seven miles from home.

Reason for the accident was that the exhaust had worked loose, feeding fumes into the cockpit making Clark drowsy and when a fumbled gear change at Hocheichen caused the car to slide his reactions were not quick enough to save him from stuffing it into the hedge. Nevertheless, the remarkable performance of the car up to that point was to have long-lasting repercussions, for a prototype 1,498cc Twin Cam engine powered it. Designed by Harry Mundy, the unit was based on Ford’s 116E engine designated for use in the as yet unannounced Ford Consul Classic and intended for use in the forthcoming Lotus Elan.