Originally Posted by openwheelKT:
DRR is usually good for 3 or 4 entries at Indy.
I think they're just doing Servia. Did Dennis Reinbold and Robbie Buhl run into money trouble in the offseason? They were always a competent mid-level team, and you see Wilson left them to go back to Dale Coyne of all people.
Originally Posted by :
I think they will get to 33 somehow.
I too think they'll get to 33.
Originally Posted by :
Lotus doesn't make sense to me. I can't keep track of who owns/runs what with the name. A couple of years ago, two F1 teams fought over the use of the name. I don't really understand how Lotus is run and who can use the name.
Talking to a friend once that followed these things closer than I did, what effectively happened was when Colin Chapman's family sold the Lotus namebrand after his death, Lotus the car company and Lotus the race team brand name went to different people. What was once Renault and is running as Lotus this year in F1 were Lotus the car company (owned by Malaysian carmaker Proton). What was once Lotus and is now Caterham (a boutique British sportscar manufacturer) was a guy named Fernandes that got Lotus the race team brand name rights. Fernandes effectively gave up the battle by letting Proton have Lotus in racing in exchange for partial ownership of the Malaysian national airline according to Formula One blogger Joe Saward. I believe the person behind Lotus in Indycar is not Fernandes but instead a Proton person, but I think the legal battle has affected long-term commitment.
The Lotus engine in Indycar is built by engine builder John Judd. I believe the new rules require a marque on the engine so he's not allowed to build engines as just "Judd" and I doubt he would anyway due to the expense of running without a badge. I hope they can stay. The more people in the sport the better, but the whole thing does have the feel of something that's overextended.
