By Andrew Cutler
November 19 2010

As expected, Lotus announced yesterday that they will be increasing their participation in the Izod IndyCar Series by provding an engine as well as an 'areo kit' come the 2012 season. Unlike the similar Chevrolet announcement last week, however, they didn't offer any details about their engine program. 

Those will be revealed at 'a later date'.

The one - possibly - interesting peice of infornmation that Lotus seemed to let slip was that the engine will likely be built in house, as opposed to contracting out to a third party engine design & manufacturing  comapny like Cosworth.

While short of specifics, Lotus Group CEO Dany Behar was full of enthusiasm for the challenge ahead. "We want to really fight and compete with the big guys. But we have a Lotus way to do things. We always try to understand what we are getting into. That's why we started this year with a very small activity with Takuma Sato with one car to understand IndyCar racing and to see whether there was an opportunity for us to become a real contender.

"We made the brave decision, yes, this is where we want to be. We believe in the series. We believe the series is developing very, very well. I think it fits perfectly very well our activities and strategies in the U.S., which is our biggest market"