They've put a lot of time and effort into this. I hope they prevail. You have to wonder if Lotus Cars realize the ill-will they're generating. Given the huge model roll-out just announced their attention may have been elsewhere. Thanks Krafty.
Only hard-core F1 fans even understand the issue. The typical road car buyer is "oh, look, they have race cars too. Neat!" Those buyers don't/won't care about an independent on-and-off team that hasn't done anything significant in decades. I don't think Lotus cars cares anything about the ill will. The amusing thing to me is that there may be two unrelated Lotus-Renault teams in 2011, both in BRG.
They have indeed. Makes Bernies F1 business and CVC dealings seem a walk in the park this. I think I get my head round it.
Lotus Racing, now Team Lotus (for how long? ), has already announced that they will compete next year with black and gold livery, a la JPS colour scheme. It's a pity that Group Lotus is going to go down in flames, thanks to Ferrari brand manager reject Dany Bahar (who left Ferrari in disgrace after the A1GP fiasco, which cost Ferrari huge money). His new Lotus road car strategy is doomed, and it's said that when he proposed the F1 involvement he didn't actually know or realize that Team Lotus was a separate company all along and that Group Lotus had no F1 heritage or rights. Moron, who's only expertise is in blowing other people's money.
A bit harsh but perhaps a bit true. It's a bit curious where all of Group Lotus' money is coming from for all these new projects considering Lotus cars has never generated a profit, only Lotus Engineering
Is it wrong that I couldn't give a crap about any of this? I started out reading that article in great detail and found myself skimming more and more, feeling like it's one more volley in a pissing match over something that lost its relevance years ago. If "Team Lotus" is too contentious, perhaps they could go with something like "Team Stol-us"
I couldn't agree more. It's a commercial dispute, that has nothing to do with F1. The protection of brand names and the intellectual properties that come with them is literally a minefield that feeds thousands of lawyers at any time. But my question is this: Why did Fernandez find it necessary at the time to resurrect an old team name, since his new outfit has absolutely nothing to do with it? He certainly tried to cash on the brand Lotus to attract sponsorship and support and now fall on his sword. Lotus Cars was still existing, and Fermandez could certainly have predicted that, soon or later, they would have dispute their rights to the name. He seems to have completely misread Proton's intentions.
True enough but what we may have here is the intersection of the law of unintended consequences and no good deed going unpunished.
Hopefully they will go away. Colin must be spining in his grave as they putter around embarrassing his name. Pete
Maybe it's just me, but who ever owns Lotus should be able to go racing under their own name. They were only split up really due to tax purposes... It used to be Lotus cars LTD, and then Lotus Components LTD.... racing .... So if Proton wants to spend all the $$ to go F-1 they should be alowed. David Hunt and Team Lotus have had plenty of time to try and get it togehter... and have faild... I back who ever can show up on the grid....
I thought this was concerning. Abandoning a successful formula. http://www.autoblog.com/2010/06/22/report-lotus-to-target-europes-best-evolve-from-lightweight-t/
You missed that Lotus Racing, Fernandes' F1 team, licensed the name from Group Lotus under a multi-year deal. What happened after that was that Proton hired Dany Bahar who had grand schemes to compete with Ferrari, and wanted to run his own F1 team rather than have another team use the name, so apparently Group Lotus terminated the license agreement to Lotus Racing on very flimsy grounds. So, Proton's original intentions were well known (let Fernandes carry the cost and risk of running an F1 team, and Proton got free brand advertising by association), and were pretty smart. Will Proton's Lotus benefit any more from being in F1 on their own and spending $20 - $25 million? No, it's just Bahar's ego pushing for this change. Not true - Group Lotus and Team Lotus were split by Chapman in 1956. Lotus Cars and Lotus Components were both subsidiaries of Group Lotus, and never built a single seater racer. Those were all built by Team Lotus, and it wasn't for tax purposes but for liability purposes that Chapman split the organizations into wholly separate companies.
Can you expand on that.^ Correct me if I 'am wrong. Fernandes: What he wants: To run an F1 team himself, under the name of Team Lotus, with Renault engines. How he wants to do it: Use his existing team that ran as Lotus Racing in 2010, and apply the name Team Lotus as he legally bought the rights to the name. Proton: What they want: To sponsor an existing F1 team (Renault F1), changing the name to Team Lotus or Team Lotus Renault. How they want to do it: Sponsor Renaults current F1 team by buying a large chunk of the team from Renault. The team would then be largely owned by Genii Capital and Group Lotus/Proton. They want to name the team Team Lotus, despite not legally owning the name. They hope to say that Team Lotus is a part of Group Lotus, rather than the two parallel entities that Chapman set them up as.
Interesting Autosport.com article, Gascoyne perplexed by Group Lotus: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88452 Best quote: Similar to Bahar's road car strategy: (paraphrasing ): "We'll do one car to compete with the Porsche Boxster, one car to compete with the Porsche 911, one car to compete with the Aston Martin Vantage, one car to compete with the Aston Martin Rapide, one car to compete with the Ferrari 458 - and we'll do them all at once!"
I am not interested in that. I was questioning your previous post: "Zat so, well go and talk about spoilers your an expert at zat." Now, Can you expand on that ?
AFAIK you got time out, banned that is !for creating a spoiler and seeing as you have nothing of worth on this subject bar, some lame comment about that this subject has nothing to do with F1, I suggest you read the spoiler thread and learn something, my comment was sarcasm, sorry it went over your head. BTW Hope you enjoyed eating some Button crow.. you got that wrong as well.
News today - the FIA released the F1 entry list for 2011, and Fernandes' team is officially entered as "Team Lotus", racing chassis engine "Lotus-Renault". The Renault team is entered as Renault. Looks like Fernandes has gained the upper hand in the battle with Briatore-wannabe Bahar and Proton/Group Lotus. 2 weeks ago, it seemed like the Malaysian government was going to support Proton and Group Lotus, and speculation was that a Lotus title sponsorship deal with Renault was imminent, and that the team name would be changed to Lotus Renault. There has been no news on that front, so it may be that Proton has ordered Bahar to back down, and isn't providing the funding to sponsor Renault until the name dispute is resolved. In addition, it would seem that Fernandes must be pretty confident that he will be able to continue to use the Team Lotus name, and that Proton didn't put enough money on the table to make him abandon the Lotus name. Bravo! James Allen suggests that the Malaysian government has told Proton/Group Lotus and Fernandes' F1 team to figure out how to work together. Makes sense, it's only Bahar's ego getting in the way. This makes it very interesting, as Group Lotus can not now jump into F1 with Renault. Has Bahar really been foiled? Is his house of cards about to begin toppling, even before his disastrous road car scheme fails in a few years?
