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Originally Posted by mythoughtsareracing
Now, I have also heard that the lack of power for the Lotus motors can be attributed (at least in part) to a temperature safety system that not only limits the power, but will also kill the motor if it reaches a certain temperature. The idea of saving the motors so they will run the distance required by IndyCar's rulebook makes sense, but it cost too much in the way of horsepower. Although I think this was more a matter of making sure the Lotus teams had working motors, as they were (and apparently still are!) in short supply.
Going into SaoPaulo and then Indianapolis, Lotus suddenly has more engines to work with, so they may be able to remove the temp safety system. In theory, this should improve the power of the Lotus cars, but nobody knows by how much.
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If you were going to cull the herd to better focus your efforts, my personal rankings of teams to keep would be:
Bourdais/Servia/Tagliani
Sorry to Simona and Katherine, but those 3 are better than each of you. In Simona's case she's kinda marketable as a female driver, the fans respect her due to her past efforts and knowing she's in a crap car, and per Cavin Tuesday night, HVM are the one Lotus team 100% fully on board with them. Legge gets added on because she's Bourdais' teammate and Jay Penske would say all or nothing (and Jay Penske may have done the same thing of wanting out, although that means Bourdais loses his sponsorship if they're receiving any money for having Lotus on the sidepod).
The whole thing goes back to how people want technical diversity in grids but fail to realize that if you're a team with a driver and sponsorship, with the level of money we're talking about here, you're not going to handicap yourself with an inferior car and engine intentionally unless you're desperate or have no better offers. It's a bit like the tires in sportscar racing for a number of years. Everyone knew Michelin was far and away superior, and the rest of the grid that had Dunlops or whatever, it wasn't because they were trying to develop an alternative or received any money there, it was because Michelin chose not to supply them. Jay Penske's team could be in that position now with engines.
Shank fielding Howard at Indy seems more likely than ever as Lotus needs the bullets.
The one bit of this that does not make any sense is Newman/Haas, unless Carl is letting all these teams suffer and work out the bugs and then he swoops in to become the "Factory Lotus" team in 2013 or 2014 and profit off all these teams' labor.
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Yannick: However, who would want to buy a road car from them after this debacle?
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Buy a Lotus road car? First, I don't know where I could do that if I wanted to. Second, if you're one of the people that does that why would you do it based on an Indycar race?