Through former CEO Dany Bahar, Lotus signed on in November of 2010 to produce engines for IndyCar’s new turbocharged formula that had been announced for 2012, but a myriad of self-induced shortcomings prevented the famed marque from reaching even the most modest levels of marketing and promotion returns.

After losing four of its five Lotus-powered cars through forceful exits prior to Round 5 at the Indy 500, and undergoing a messy split with Bahar just a few weeks later, the Lotus IndyCar program seemed destined to become a one-and-done adventure before the championship reached its halfway point.

HVM's de Silvestro earned the respect of her competitors by fighting an uphill battle with an uncompetitive engine. She'd finish 24th in points with a best result of 13th in 2012. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

Its 2012 season ended in disappointment at Fontana with another expired engine in the back of Simona de Silvestro’s HVM Racing entry, which bookended how her season started at St. Petersburg—with a premature end to the race.

It remained unpublished at the time, but the fact that Lotus made it to the season finale in September with a single engine still in play was a minor miracle due to the fact that the manufacturer had ceased funding the project more than a month earlier.

Behind the scenes, Lotus had been escalating its gamesmanship with the series and its lone team as it abandoned the financial support of its 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 powerplant, which was designed, built and administered by Engine Developments Limited in the UK.

With development having stopped at EDL during mid-summer--the precise time Lotus stopped sending checks to honor its commitments—the engine builder and HVM were thrust into an uncomfortable situation.

It’s known that HVM tried to gain an IndyCar-sanctioned release from its Lotus contract, just as the series granted Bryan Herta Autosport, Dragon Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (after a lot of heated discussions) between April and May, but a few different scenarios played out to keep HVM entangled with Lotus.

Bound to Lotus by IndyCar, and with the refusal by former series CEO Randy Bernard to let HVM sign with a different manufacturer, the team had no choice but to effectively bankroll the Lotus engine program and pay EDL directly to keep motors coming for the final rounds of the championship.

With HVM serving as the anchor team for Lotus—going as far to house the Lotus IndyCar staff in its Indianapolis shop, the business relationship between both parties ran deeper than the other teams that had signed lease agreements to use its engines.

The situation reached a low point at the Sonoma round in late August when, for reasons attributed to flight delays, no Lotus engine technicians were sent to the race to oversee the starting, running and care of HVM’s powerplant. De Silvestro was noticeably late to take to the track for opening practice due to the lack of Lotus support personnel being on the ground to fire her engine—a duty held exclusively by each manufacturer.

A bit of scrambling ensued, and thanks to one team member having both the McLaren ECU software on his laptop and the knowledge of how to use it, de Silvestro’s engine was fired. The Swiss driver was then sent out to practice after missing the first 20 minutes of the session.

Months earlier, the future looked bright for Lotus and HVM, but like most things in this tale, good intentions weren’t followed by the decisions or dollars to carry them out.

After qualifying for a post-Indy performance boost from the series, Lotus announced its plans to spend more money on its IndyCar engine and had secured the external resources to accelerate its development.

The Lotus situation became a punchline in May at Indy when its entries were woefully off the pace, leading to prolonged negotiations on how to depart the series without spending more money. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

It’s believed Lotus had contracted with Toyota Motorsports GmbH and its ex-F1 base in Cologne to bolster EDL’s efforts to reduce the horsepower and torque advantage held by Chevy and Honda, but with Bahar’s departure, and Lotus’ new management uninterested in spending more money on the program, the funding never materialized.

An initial bump in performance was seen by de Silvestro after EDL’s first few developments hit the track—items that had been approved before Lotus changed its mind about spending money—but the multi-stage unveiling of additional hikes in power and torque did not appear.

With Lotus having closed its wallet and a thoroughly un-workable situation having been created, rumblings of an early departure by Lotus—well before the season had been completed—began to circulate.

In hindsight, it would have been the best possible scenario for all parties, but the situation took an unfortunate turn with the series when Lotus refused to pay the exit fee.

IndyCar’s stance—insisting to get paid by Lotus—was perfectly understandable, but it came at the expense of what was in the best interest of one of its teams. With HVM as the only entity in the paddock tying Lotus to the series, IndyCar refused to grant the team a release to sign with Chevy or Honda.

If HVM had been released, just as the series had done with BHA, Dragon and DRR, it would have left Lotus without any teams and weakened the series’ bargaining chip to demand the severance payout.

As an unwilling member of the contract dispute between the series and Lotus, HVM became a pawn and paid the price, both literally and figuratively, as the team was soon forced to bankroll its manufacturer’s engine program to keep its driver and sponsors on track.

Being saddled with the least competitive engine in the series also eroded HVM’s standing with its sponsors who recently left, along with de Silvestro and much of the team’s crew, to join KV Racing for 2013, closing the chapter on an engine experiment that ultimately caused more harm than good for the series, Lotus, its engine builder and its teams.

In the wake of what transpired with Lotus, HVM is now looking to rebuild and has designs on fielding a sports car program in 2013.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, and covers the IndyCar Series. Before joining SPEED, Pruett worked in open-wheel racing for 20 years as a mechanic and engineer. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.