Group Lotus buys Renault F1 Team

[astracrazy]

Funny seeing the Union Jack on a French car

Renault has no shares at Renault Lotus GP any more. Sad, but it's not a French team...

Oi, it was never a French team. Let's get that straight. Same with Mercedes. Same with Red Bull. The Teams are built out of the bricks and mortar that are England, and England have much to be proud of.

depends if you define somethings nationality by where it was built or by who owns it

[Giblet]

The engines are made in Viry, France. The teams base of operations is split between England and France.

[Blackout]

The engines are made in Viry, France. The teams base of operations is split between England and France.

+1

It's an anglo-french team simply...

And there is Frenches in Enstone and Englanders in Viry.

[autogyro]

One upon a time French cars were blue English cars were green Italian cars were red German cars were silver and oh yes, American cars were white.
Pity it is not that simple today.

[Formula None]

One upon a time French cars were blue English cars were green Italian cars were red German cars were silver and oh yes, American cars were white.
Pity it is not that simple today.

And there was a big, readable number on each car so you didn't have to strain to catch the paint pattern on the driver's helmet...

[Neno]

Interesting info from RF1 web page:

“At the moment the aero team is working on the package that will go on the car for the first race in Bahrain,” explains Technical Director James Allison. “We’ve already defined the geometries we will use for the launch car, but the wind tunnel work for race one will continue well into the New Year, especially for the parts that can be made at the last minute.”

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... enault.fr/

[Carlo's]

@up What do you mean by that? There is news about Team Lotus, not about Lotus Renault GP.

[Blackout]

I think he means the ''Renault linked to Lotus Renault GP until at least 2013'' article.

[mx_tifoso]

One upon a time French cars were blue English cars were green Italian cars were red German cars were silver and oh yes, American cars were white.
Pity it is not that simple today.

And there was a big, readable number on each car so you didn't have to strain to catch the paint pattern on the driver's helmet...

That should be in the regulations. The main color of the livery must reflect the nationality of the constructor. And please get some noticeable numbers on the cars.

Anyways, this is quite a mess and I'm surprised that Ecclestone hasn't jumped in to fix it.

But seeing the Renault cars get pimped out like this is pretty sad. First they sold out to Genii, and now Lotus barge in with their money and paint the cars black and add Lotus as a main sponsor. Ludicrous.

Best of luck regardless?

[Bob Brown]

I believe Lotus Renault F1 will now employ Fauzy as their test driver thanks to Proton money and Malaysia exposure. Oh well, I think this is for the best for Team Lotus since they would then be able to get actual young drivers that would help them instead of having to service a Malaysian driver for sponsors sake.

[Jonsson]

From what I gather, Tony Fernandez's Lotus Racing team (the one that raced all season in 2010 with Heikki and Jarno) is the ONLY legitimate Lotus F1 team.

The complication stems from the effective splitting of the Lotus name in 1996 when Proton purchased "Lotus" specifically for branding their road cars. Proton was actually surprised to find out that David Hunt retained rights to "Team Lotus" for F1 racing; so David Hunt is not exactly a saint in this situation. Neither is the Chapman family. They supposedly split the Lotus name in 1991 when he sold "Team Lotus" to Peter Collins. Meanwhile, Group Lotus remained a "3rd party sponsor" of Lotus F1 from 1991-94, when they jumped ship.

If you're still with me, we're past the confusing part; because "Team Lotus" raced two events in 1994 ALONE, with no sponsorship from Group Lotus. This was the effective split, both physically and mentally, of the brand name "Lotus." David Hunt then purchased all rights to Team Lotus and everything was made legal in the U.K. courts back then. In fact, in 1996, David Hunt approached the Malaysian-based Proton (Proton had just purchased "Group Lotus") asking them whether they were interested in forming an F1 racing team. That's when things got ugly.

Proton was sure they had purchased the rights to the F1 racing team when they bought Group Lotus. David Hunt sat on the F1 brand for 16 years which suggests he may have abandoned it. But, from what I see, he has always had the intent to bring the name back to Formula 1, which means he never actually abandoned the brand name. Apparently Tony Fernandez was confused when he formed Lotus Racing for 2010 since he approached Group Lotus to secure a license. However, this just ignited a maelstrom since David Hunt immediately began asserting his own rights. Tony Fernandez, probably trying to mediate and make everyone happy, signed a deal with David Hunt so Lotus Racing could officially become Team Lotus; the true F1 team. One thing is certain; Tony Fernandez is not to blame for this fiasco. David Hunt and Proton have tangled themselves up in this mess and in the process, have gotten poor Tony all mixed up in it.

So that leaves us with Group Lotus. They are trying to assert their own farcical rights to the F1 brand, but don't yet realize that they will fail. However; and this is very, very weird; Group Lotus, like every other company in the world, has every right to become a paying sponsor of an F1 team. They've realized this and have officially become a "title sponsor" (think Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and Panasonic Toyota) of Renault. This means that they can name themselves "Lotus" Renault GP (the Lotus being the Proton car manufacturer, NOT the F1 racing team). Despite all the baloney about "Lotus" Renault being its own F1 team, it's really just Renault with Lotus colors and the Lotus name. Renault is the true constructor of that car.

So, if you're going to root for Lotus, make sure it's the right one. Tony Fernandez's Team Lotus is the ONLY true Lotus. "Lotus" Renault is really just Renault with some $$$ coming in from a Malaysian auto company.

[Jonsson]

Let me clarify about Colin Chapman. He had little to do with this confusion. His only part to play was that he had actually split Lotus F1 (Team Lotus) and Lotus cars back in 1954, when Lotus cars was called Lotus Engineering. The two entities remained very close until their effective split in 1994.

What I meant was Peter Collins and Peter Wright secured rights to Lotus F1 in 1991 and legally sold off their rights in 1994 to David Hunt. Lotus cars was owned by Bugatti until 1996, and then sold to Proton. The confusion comes in where Proton had actually thought they bought the F1 team also. Proton actually failed in their own due diligence.

[A13EX_f]

whilst i think lotus cars (proton) have been a bit nasty in the way that have gone about coming into f1 towards the 1 Malaysia team the facts are still as follows:

1 malaysia was using the lotus name "under licence" this helped them gain extra sponsors no doubt and provided advertising for lotus cars

lotus cars have every right to come into f1 to help them sell road cars in the same way that if they wanted to any manufacturer even Kia, ford, etc etc could if they so wished you cannot complain about them changing the team name to lotus they have effectively done the same as mercedes did by buying brawn gp and changing the name to mercedes, lets not forget the brawn team was 1 season before a honda!

1 malaysia should drop the lotus name and find a title sponsor asap and not provide any free advertising to lotus and sue them for any loss of earning from the withdrawal of the licence thats all they can do

[marcush.]

Proton buying Lotus and not realising they had not bought the rights to Team lotus brand is a major slip ..I´d say their lawyers must have been a bit underinformed...
But realistically it was the same with Fernandes ..he bought a license from group Lotus and realised only later he had dealt with the wrong people.Not really ..i think it was always on Fernandes agenda to incorporate Lotus Cars in his efforts...
I´m not quite sure what Bahar and Proton are on but could their activity help them selling Lotus cars? They now find themselves in the middle of lawsuits and courtyards and all this for a few spots ahead on the grid...not so clever.

[horse]

I think the 1Maylasia (Team Lotus) Team should consider changing their title. Why not take on another classic mark like 'Cooper'?

Keep the British angle going, nice classic garagist history. I think fans of the team would adapt quickly, given the circumstances.