By indycar.com staff

The classic Racing Green and Yellow livery used on Lotus Racing cars in the 1950s and ‘60s returns to North America, with its debut on the No. 5 KV Racing Technology car in the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 28.

Lotus and Cosworth have entered into a technical and commercial partnership with the IZOD IndyCar Series team. The car will be driven by former Formula One driver Takuma Sato.

Lotus competed for a number of years in Indy car racing in the 1960s, winning the Indianapolis 500 in 1965 with the pioneering Lotus Type 38 driven by Jim Clark.

“Racing has always defined Lotus and on many occasions in motorsports history Lotus’ numerous innovations have re-defined racing,” said Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus. “It’s only fitting that as the Lotus Racing name re-enters Formula 1, we will also race and innovate again in IndyCar. The Lotus name will, once again compete in the top two open-wheel racing series for the passion and enthusiasm of car fans around the globe.”

Entering the IZOD IndyCar Series follows the recent announcement that the strategic partnership of Lotus and Cosworth will investigate opportunities to develop high performance engines for Lotus cars.

“This is fantastic news for everyone,” said Sato, who made his IZOD IndyCar Series debut on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on March 14. “It is exciting for me to be a Lotus driver and I’m really looking forward to great success with this new project.”

source http://www.indycar.com