Lotus Are Back
It has now been officially announced that lotus will be the 13th team in next years formula 1 season. There have been rumours for a bit now that a lotus / sauber partnership would be buying the bmw team which was formally the sauber f1 team, although there was also rumours that kubica would go to ferrari for the rest of the season to replace badoer in a compensation package that would mean the lotus-sauber team would be supplied with ferrrai engines next year.
For those not in the know:
Lotus won seven constructors' crowns and six drivers' champions, including Jim Clark and Graham Hill, during their golden era in the 1960s and '70s.
The ownership rights for the name were bought by businessman David Hunt - the brother of the late former world champion James - when Team Lotus collapsed.
Colin Chapman founded Lotus in 1952 and went on to influence the careers of some of the sport's great drivers - and cars.
Stirling Moss gave Lotus their first grand prix win at Monaco in 1960, signalling the team's rise in competitiveness.
In 1962, Chapman designed the revolutionary one-piece, or monocoque, chassis based on aircraft design.
The following season, the dominant Lotus powered Clark to his first title and the Scot added a second in 1965.
Andretti claimed the last world title for Lotus in their famous black and gold cars in 1978.
In 1968 Clark was killed in a Formula Two race; his Lotus team-mate Hill went on to win his second championship that year.
Austrian Jochen Rindt became the sport's first posthumous world champion in 1970 when he died driving for Lotus during practice for the Italian Grand Prix.
Rindt's replacement, Emerson Fittipaldi, won another title for Lotus in 1972 with Mario Andretti becoming the team's sixth world champion in 1978.
Andretti's triumph was down to another Chapman design perfection known as "ground effect," where air flowing under the car was channelled to create increased levels of aerodynamic downforce.
But Andretti's win was also marked by sadness as his popular team-mate Ronnie Peterson died when he was seriously injured at Monza.
Four years later, Chapman, who handed future world champion Nigel Mansell his debut in 1980, suffered a heart attack and died.
Under new leadership, Lotus enjoyed limited success in the mid-1980s, despite having Ayrton Senna, who would go on to win three world titles, at the wheel.
The team succumbed to financial pressures in 1994 and withdrew from F1, but remains the fourth most successful constructor of all time.
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