Classic Team Lotus have recently returned from a successful Canadian adventure pleased to be celebrating a clean sweep of victories from the four-race series for Historic Formula 1 cars.
The opening pair of races supported the Canada Grand Prix, held at the iconic Circuit Gilles Villeneuve named after the much loved French-Canadian Ferrari racer, with 19 cars lining up on the grid for race one.
Greg Thornton started on the front row in his Lotus Type 91 alongside pole man Jean Michel Martin who crashed his Tyrell 009 on the first lap causing a stoppage.
This left Thornton on his own at the front of the grid for the restart and the Lotus racer made short work of taking victory in his ex-Elio de Angelis car.
Fellow CTL racer Katsu Kubota slipped back to fourth place, in his ex-Gunnar Nilsson Lotus 78, with a fuel-related problem but managed to nurse the car along to benefit from the late retirement of the Wolf WR4 of former world motorcycling champion Eddie Lawson to secure a podium slot for third place.
To complete a good race for the Norfolk team, Andrew Beaumont, in his Lotus 81, came home in fourth place.
Thornton led the second race at the Montreal circuit throughout but had to keep an eye on team-mate Kubota whose Lotus 78 was now fully on song, which sadly wasn't the case for Beaumont who retired with a throttle-related issue.
The following week the series moved on to the Mosport Park Circuit, with Thornton claiming pole position despite an early stoppage due to a broken throttle cable.
With the repaired car Thornton recorded a double victory at the historic Canadian track, the venue of the Grand Prix prior to moving to its current home in Montreal.
Kubota maintained the domination of the Lotus marque at the front of the field by taking a pair of second places with his Lotus 78, the sister car to Mario Andretti's 78/3, which claimed pole position for the 1977 Canadian Grand Prix, the last visit to the circuit for Team Lotus.
To cap a wonderful journey for the local team Beaumont completed both races despite having to nurse his car to the finish of race two.
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