http://www.planetf1.com/driver/18227/7653376/Lotus-F1-and-Group-Lotus-part-ways Gerard Lopez is determined to keep the Lotus name in Formula One despite Group Lotus terminating their title sponsorship deal with the F1 team. The Lotus F1 team is owned by Genii Capital, who had a sponsorship deal in place with Group Lotus. However, with the latter having recently been sold to Malaysian automotive conglomerate DRB-Hicom, the relationship has been cancelled. "The sponsorship agreement and the obligations of Lotus have been terminated," Genii owner Lopez told Autosport. "There is no option from Group Lotus to buy into F1 now - that option was taken over by us. There was one, but we have taken it over now." But just because Group Lotus are no longer involved in the team that does not mean a change of name with Lopez revealing he is keen to keep the Lotus name in Formula One. "We are happy to carry the Lotus name as we believe it is a good name for F1," he added. "We funded the team last year and the year before for whatever delta was missing. We would prefer to have sponsors up to the full amount - but if we have to fund it then we will fund it. "When we changed the name from Lotus Renault to Lotus [for this year], it opened up the door for a title sponsor. "So if you take into account the fact we signed Unilever, probably the biggest sponsorship agreement this year in F1, and we signed Microsoft, which is huge news as it is a brand that has never been in F1 before, we have a wide space for sponsorship. "If we sign a title sponsor now, we will end up with a better cash flow situation than this team ever had before."
In all reality Lotus has not been Lotus since Peter Warr. I love that the name is back in F1 but it is being passed around like some cheap crack whore and that pisses me off.
Lotus died a while ago It's a nice gesture to keep the name alive, but sometimes it's better to leave things as they once were. I'm with texasmr2 on this one.
Once again, Dany Bahar has been shown to be nothing more than a snake oil salesman. The egomaniac screwed over Tony Fernandes at the first chance when Proton was stupid/naieve enough to give him the reins of Lotus Group, and now he's screwed over Genii. It looks like new Proton owners DRB-Hicom are not as naieve about Bahar, and are seriously questioning the value of Lotus to Proton, since Bahar's idiotic schemes to compete with Porsche and Ferrari have resulted in huge debts and little chance of revenue ever covering expenses. Hopefully DRB-Hicom fire Bahar ASAP, then sell off Lotus to Genii or even go crawling back to Fernandes. Someone is going to have to eat all the debt run up by Bahar, though. As for the "Lotus" F1 team - they're stuck with a name that now means nothing (unless they can buy Group Lotus), so it will be interesting to see what they can pull off. It seems that Group Lotus separate strategy to invest in every possible racing series is also falling apart, since in IndyCar their engine customers are currently being screwed over.
Do the Chapman family still own outright anything affiliated with Lotus? I know they did years ago but it is diffucult to follow are the transfers.
I believe Colin's son Clive Chapman owns and operates Classic Team Lotus: http://www.classicteamlotus.co.uk/default.aspx
Now that rings a bell from a Lotus bio I watched. I wonder how the family members feel about their heritage being tossed around with such disregard? Change is difficult. Actually I'm being selfserving because I do not like it.
This has been mentioned as a possibility by Lopez, the head of Genii. The group that bought Proton may desinterest itself with Lotus in future.
The road car arm of Lotus went public in what ... the late sixties? At that point it was no longer solely under ACBC's control, and subsequently is not now in the Chapman family's control. The F-1 team became a separate entity owned by Colin but ultimately ceased operations & all assets, including the name, were seized by creditors. I'm with most prior posters in that the current team is so far removed from its origins that it means relatively little to the Lotus racing heritage. Unfortunately, any grousing is akin to Paul McCartney *****ing about Michael Jackson licensing the song "Revolution" to Nike about 17 years ago ... you know, if you wanted it to remain sacrosanct, you shouldn't have sold it!
They should just use Renault, as some of the above posters mentioned. But then again, we're talking about Gerard Lopez. An unethical person. So who cares anyways. I do hope Kimster gets the Red Bull drive next season...
