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It wasn't an easy day for the Lotus HVM Racing #78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy car at today's Honda Indy Toronto. A day that dawned bright and sunny and full of hope, quickly took a turn for the worse when De Silvestro hit a tire that was knocked into the racing line by Sebastian Bourdais. De Silvestro hit the wall hard and sustained considerable damage to the car. The team worked frantically, managing to repair the car just as the grid was being set. De Silvestro started 25th after being assessed a 10-spot penalty for the unapproved engine change that brought her a bit more power this weekend. On lap 8 she reported an issue with power and was brought into the pit on lap 9. The team tried to work on the car in the pit, but eventually took the car back to the garage to try more repairs. They were unable to complete the necessary repairs in time to rejoin the race. "I'm pretty disappointed," De Silvestro said. "Something happened with the engine. We were hoping for a good finish, trying to stay out of trouble. It's hard to say right now, we just did a couple of laps. We'll have to see what happened and go to Edmonton and try to do better." Team owner, Keith Wiggins was equally displeased with the early exit. "It's just very disappointing," he said. "After the incident this morning in which we sustained a lot of damage, the guys did a fantastic job to put it (the car) all back together and have it ready. Then to have an engine issue is bitterly disappointing and we have to do something about it." Tom Brown, technical director for Lotus HVM Racing summed up the weekend. "It was a tough weekend," he said. "We had a little bit of help with the engine that got us headed somewhat in the right direction, but we obviously need quite a bit more. The guys worked real hard and never gave up. I'm very proud of them. We had an unfortunate incident this morning where we hit a tire on track and now it looks like we've got an engine issue that's put us out of the race. I guess we'll look forward to Edmonton." The team next travels to Edmonton, AB on July 22nd. The race will air on NBC Sports Network at 2:45 p.m. (ET).

With top-10 finishes in her previous two starts at this track, a new updated engine, and strong practice sessions all weekend, Lotus HVM Racing driver Simona De Silvestro was poised for a strong qualifying session at the Honda Indy Toronto. Unfortunately, qualifying didn't go as well as she and the team had hoped. On a mostly wet track, De Silvestro had the #78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy car in the top-12 for the majority of this morning's practice before encountering some braking issues on the final two laps resulting in an 18th place finish in the session. With her pace on par with the rest of the field on the 1.75-mile street course, thanks in part to the new engine updates, De Silvestro was poised for potentially her best qualifying of the season. A couple of factors contributed to the disappointing session. The first factor - black tires were used for all practice sessions and car setup, while red tires were used for qualifying. The difference in how the car handled was slight, but noticeable. "I'm pretty disappointed," De Silvestro said. "We have a pretty strong race car; it just didn't come to us on reds. I don't know, we'll see what we've got tomorrow. We have a good race-pace, so hopefully we can go do some good things tomorrow." The second factor was traffic. "We didn't get a clear lap which is on us," Keith Wiggins, team owner, said. "We need to make sure we don't get held up. We've made improvements. There've been improvements to the engine and we've made progress. Unfortunately, it wasn't reflected in qualifying. I just don't think we got the best out of the car for this session." Team Manager Shane Seneviratne felt the result could have been better. "It was a disappointing qualifying session," he said. "We ran well all weekend. We had good practice sessions, but we just didn't put it together for the qualifying group. We have a good race car, so we're looking forward to the race." The team faces a 10-spot penalty for an unapproved engine change. The starting grid will be announced after tomorrow's warm-up session. The 85-lap Honda Indy Toronto airs live on ABC tomorrow, Sunday, July 8 at 12:30 p.m. (ET).

The 10th round of the 2012 season will take place on the 1.75-mile temporary street circuit at Toronto’s Exhibition Place, by the lakeshore. And Lotus is excited because the engine builder is packing an upgrade. Lotus HVM Racing driver Simona De Silvestro is looking forward to a great race weekend. The Swiss Miss is hoping to see some improvements on her #78 machine when the newly installed Lotus engine runs its first laps on the Toronto street circuit. “Lotus will be bringing us an update, before every race, starting this weekend” she said. “We’ll see how Toronto works out, but I think with an upgraded engine, we should have better results. We just need to keep focusing on what we are doing. For sure, it would be great to run in the top 10, that would be really good for us. We are going to go to Toronto with an open mind. I’m excited to see what this new engine can do.” She added: “It’s been frustrating so far this season, because we had a strong race car at Detroit and again at Iowa, but with less power, it was so hard for us to pass,” she said. “We seem to be able to keep a good pace, but when it’s time to pass, we don’t have the speed to do it.” Director of Lotus Racing Claudio Berro says: "We sent IndyCar a list of modifications we wanted to do on the engine between now and the end of the season. The list included the parts we intend to modify, when, and the level of power improvement expected. IndyCar approved all our requests and just needed to know from us when an engine would be updated. The first update is planned for Toronto. The next step will be for Edmonton. We will bring as much performance as we can, with reduced fuel consumption which is as important, and which means that we will accept the 10-spot grid penalty for any upgrade." On Monday, before heading to Toronto, the Lotus HVM Racing team went testing at Mid-Ohio. This was the first test in which the team has participated since the start of the season. The team worked on different areas of the car, as the new Lotus engine was only installed after the test. The city of Toronto is definitely a favourite spot among the IndyCar teams and drivers. Toronto is the cultural, entertainment and financial capital of Canada. The Metro Toronto area is home to more than 4.7 million people and is often referred to as the “Canada’s version of New York City”. Toronto has much to offer. Rumor has it that most of the IndyCar drivers bring their wives and girlfriends to this event, mainly for the shopping and fine restaurants. The architecture, the shops, and the people is what Toronto is all about. The energy is palpable in this city. And best of all, Canadians are big open-wheel fans. The IZOD IndyCar Series is bringing back the ‘push-to-pass’ feature for the remaining five road and street races on this year’s schedule, starting this weekend. This feature allows a driver to add turbo-boost by pressing a button on the steering wheel in order to pass. However, the IndyCar Series has imposed a pre-determined time to utilize the push. For the Toronto race, the total time will be 100 seconds. It will be up to the driver to manage the seconds used. All in all, this should make for a very interesting race weekend.