Lotus Granted 13th Spot On 2010 Grid

[ISLAMATRON]

Yes because only europeans could ever be good engineers.

UK is the centre of Race Car Engineering - the best engineers will gravitate to the area.

That being said there are plenty of great engineers around the world who would rather not live in the UK.

[gridwalker]

Almost completely off topic, but I had to share :

[alexbarwell]

Only the best engineers found in UK? Bit of a bold statement and sitting on such laurels did for other nations that built up an excess of pride. Its also because engineers and scientists get ignored a lot that they end up going abroad and then the government starts talking about there not being enough of them, or a brain-drain developing.

Its like the '80s all over again

Sorry guys, rant over.

[mx_tifoso]

Sorry guys, rant over.

No problem, but lets try and keep this discussion on topic shall we.

[PlatinumZealot]

If Proton owns lotus and the car is going to be made in lotus Factories.. why not use the Lotus name?

Get over it you Brits! The car will be fine!

[sknguy]

They should try a flag theme:

[axle]

Personally, being from Lotus's home of Norfolk UK, I'm just happy to see an F1 team back on track carrying the name as it's advertising if nothing else.

I hope they do well and believe they will. Much the same as the other racing teams that are joining next year.

The thing is, Lotus will never be team Chapman again, even if it was the guys building the Elise's now building the F1 cars. Because Chapman was a rare genius of his time but that time has gone. The innovation he brought can't be repeated in the modern climate....so like I say I just view it as a wonderful bit of advertising for the brand and hope it helps them build a bigger profile around the world which will help sales and secure jobs.

[Jukebox]

Brits don't own Lotus anymore....live with it and move on will ya

[noname]

"He (Tony Fernandes) admitted that while the bulk of the team will be Malaysian nationals with an eventual base at the Sepang circuit"

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/n ... 5541.shtml

just a badge.

[axle]

Brits don't own Lotus anymore....live with it and move on will ya

Was that aimed at me? [-X

[Giblet]

I am a bit confused by BMW's position being the odd team out, if that is their position.

If BMW has paid their bond, and another group buys the team, they also buy the bond, correct? If the bond ensures that the teams stays to race, should it not also ensure that they GET to race? This is how BAR did it when they purchased the Tyrell team, buying the bond and debt and restarting as a newly named team.

I must be missing something in the reasoning that they are not currently enrolled in the sport.

Also, what about other teams that have multi year sponsorship packages, guaranteeing x number of races that show the cars colours, or what if a team with a single race themed branding, doesn't get to qualify and the sponsor loses out, assuming they go to a situation of teams qualifying to race, nit just for position.

[modbaraban]

Probably FIA were in a hurry to push the so called Team Lotus into a free slot. But they announced that Sauber could come and play if they're saved. It's not like FIA had no idea about the BMW and Qabadabadu deal 1 day before it was announced, right? But they'll just have to increase the limit of teams to 14 for Sauber with employees and everything. They'd have no reasons to do this for MaLotus.

So now we have 14 teams... on paper. Pretty much nobody expects all 14 teams to turn up anyway so by increasing the entry list FIA has increased the chances to get more or less full grid.

And then there's the Renault story...