Lotus F1 Team 2012

[N12ck]

Lotus no longer paying for sponsorship

http://www.seloc.org/2012/03/lotus-no-longer-paying-for-f1-sponsorship/

[wesley123]

I always thought advertisement was to make people buy more of their products or makes me want to buy it. Every time I see Lotus here I want the company to cease existing.

[N12ck]

to me it means either they have been bought by Genii or they have bought the team

[WilliamsF1]

I feel kimi made the wrong choice with lotus this year. Williams would have been better considering lotus is cash strapped for the rest of the year.

[Websta]

And Williams have no financial troubles of their own.

Edit: grammar

[WilliamsF1]

Atleast they know where their money is going to come from for this and next season.

[axle]

This "news" has been out for a week or so.
Genii are using the brand name for free really, the financial agreement between the 2 parties was basically that Lotus agreed to service a debt that was owed by the team to Snoras.
They are now not servicing the debt because the Lotus bank account is pretty much frozen whilst the new Malaysian owners of Proton, DRB-Hicom, do their due diligence and decide what to do with Group Lotus. One scenario is for the debts to be written off and the business "sold" to Genii to manage. Another is to sell to the Chinese. The former pretty much sees the Hethel site and employees survive, the latter sees it all lost and taken to China ala MG Rover.
In short it's a disaster of mis-management, by Proton. They installed Dani Bahar in his role at Lotus, and supported his vision, guess they didn't expect the Malay govt to sell Proton.

I just hope that the Hethel site survives. If, the debts are written off or refinanced so that Genii or another can manage the company and grow it, then the future could be bright.

Genii certainly like the Lotus brand...and are certainly finding sponsorship in a tough market so a full hook up between the F1 team and the group via Genii would be advantageous for all concerned.

[WilliamsF1]

^ lotus situation is unrelated to that of the f1 team

my point is Genii is not red bull to splurge money on the f1 team. lotus f1 team today does not have much in its kitty for a proper development programme for this year.

[Donuts]

^ lotus situation is unrelated to that of the f1 team

my point is Genii is not red bull to splurge money on the f1 team. lotus f1 team today does not have much in its kitty for a proper development programme for this year.

How do you know? You're writing the exact opposite to what was said by Gerard Lopez. Genii is fine without a main sponsor, they would rather have one, but they are fine without one as well. I don't have the time to do research about Genii's financial situation, but if I remember correclty they did some really big business deals last year(they might not be Red Bull, but I'm not sure). If I also remember correctly, Williams sponsorship has been heavily debated in the Venezuelan parliament. What will happen to any of the teams? Who knows? Wild specualtions!

[MarkedOne8]

This team is in championship hunt now for sure.

[Owen.C93]

This team is in championship hunt now for sure.

Alonso is. Not sure that Ferrari are though.

[zyphro]

This team is in championship hunt now for sure.

Alonso is. Not sure that Ferrari are though.

Lol, Ferrari seem to be a one-man team these days, anyhow

[raymondu999]

This team is in championship hunt now for sure.

Alonso is. Not sure that Ferrari are though.

He's talking about Lotus I think - given that this is the Lotus thread.

[dren]

The car has looked good in every race so far. I am picking Raikkonen for the champion if they keep it up. The car needs a bit more in qualifying trim at this point. I don't know if the car is just good on the tires or if the engineers are getting it set-up just right each race. I'm not surprised because this team has historically been good in the mechanical department.

[xDama]

This team is in championship hunt now for sure.

Absolutely. I think it's quite possible that we could see a Lotus win in Monte Carlo (I know, they're saying this for some races now, but Monte Carlo is special) and with Kimi scoring consistent podiums, they're definitely in the hunt.