It's been a good start to the year in terms of driving fun but, the Fury is currently being worked on to fix a fault that occurred.

Got confirmation today of my factory visit to see Team Lotus F1 team.

Have got my tickets for the Goodwood Festival of Speed :-)

Nice promo video of the Lotus T125:

Took the day off work and drove up to see Team Lotus at Hingham. It was a shame my Fury R1 is currently off the road as the roads up through suffolk and Norfolk are fantastic and the weather was perfect. It is about 90 minutes drive from home.

Having visited the Renault F1 team at Enstone in November 2008, I was expecting something much bigger but, it turned out not to be the case. Formula 1 teams have to run on a lot less money these days and Team Lotus is a much smaller outfit.

The atmosphere was much the same though and the basic technologies and fabrication techniques are the same too. The tour started off with a video of the history of Team Lotus. Despite the current politics and controversy around the Lotus name, this team was instrumental in getting the Lotus name back into F1 and they also had official backing from Group Lotus at the start.

We then had a tour of the design, engineering and fabrication facilities. Carbon fibre is such a wonderful material and I'd love to be able to fabricate parts using it. The teams have limited time on modelling and wind tunnel testing these days so there is a lot more focus on building parts and testing them, rather than using computational fluid dynamics.

We got amazing access to the cars and had a chance to have a detailled look inside the two cars being prepared for the next race in Spain. We also got to look in the transporters and much of the packing for the next race was already underway. We were not allowed to take any pictures.

The whole tour took about 90 minutes and it costs £80. You have to book it in advance. We were given some gifts at the end which included a book on the history of Team Lotus. All in all, it was a great morning. The people were really friendly and the atmosphere was great. You get a real idea of how such a small team has managed to achieve so much in such a short period of time. It might be a while before they are truly competitive and gaining podium places but, the belief was clearly there.

Today there was a court decision on the naming issues around 'Lotus' and 'Team Lotus' in Formula 1. Team Lotus are appealing so the story has a few more twists and turns to go yet. Team Lotus have secured the Team Lotus name, so we will have both Lotus and Team Lotus involved in Formula 1 going forward.

Le Mans

Was really hoping to go to Le Mans this year but,I'm now planning to go next year instead. This is the 2011 schedule of events. It got me thinking about how to watch it though. Most of the TV coverage is on Eurosport but I don't have a TV service that includes these channels. You can get a 1-month subscription to watch it via the Eurosport PC Player for only £3.99 per month. Yahoo! also have a dedicated website for Le Mans.

iOS Devices

The latter app can be used to get a 1-month subscription for only £2.39. This gives you live access to the Eurosport and Eurosport 2 channels. You can also set notifications for particular sports (though Le Mans doesn't seem to be listed or covered yet). It also provides access to 24-hour channel schedules.

Using the Apple composite video/audio lead I have managed to get a watchable picture out of an iPhone 4, out onto our 37" plasma TV. It also works with the new HDMI Digital AV lead from Apple but, this doesn't provide a better picture due to the compression used in sending the video over the Internet.

Android

I can't find a Eurosport Player app for my Google Nexus S, despite various web pages saying it was in development. There is a Eurosport News app in the Android Market though.

Recording

If you subscribe to the PC Player service, you can search the TV guide and 'relive' past programmes. As an example, this page lists past programmes featuring Le Mans.

Electronic Programme guide (EPG)

Eurosport have a searchable TV Guide (results for 'Le Mans' search) that lists forthcoming Le Mans coverage.

TV Guide iPhone app on my iPhone and this can provide EPG data for the Eurosport channels.

Other Stuff

• Le Mans Radio
• Le Mans 2011 spotters guide
• Live timing boards
• @Lemansrace on Twitter
• @24hoursoflemans on Twitter

Got the Fury R1 back together and out on the road again. It is really going well!