|
The whole deal with Lotus is a cluster, to be certain.
When the ownership of Lotus changed hands, the money stopped flowing to Judd. Judd wasn't getting paid, so they quit developing & manufacturing the IndyCar motor. When Judd got paid, work resumed, but they were already WAAAY behind the curve.
It doesn't help when Lotus promised teams material goods like chassis and such as part of their lease contracts for the Lotus lumps. Dragon, specifically, was promised two chassis, which they received one from Lotus. That's why Dragon had only one car for testing at St.Pete.
When Lotus came out and said "everyone who paid for a motor got a motor", Jay Penske got riled up because he was promised a chassis as part of their contract and never received it.
Hence the $4.6M lawsuit.
Furthermore, Lotus admitted to teams that they had no plan for the mid-season engine refresh to improve performance. So they are last on the grid because the motor is garbage and they're doing nothing about it.
I suspect the reason boils down to money. Again, with Judd doing the development work, they would be the ones to squeeze more power out of the motor. Lotus has lost all but one team and ousted their CEO because of alleged embezzlement. I don't see Lotus having any money to pay for more development work.
My media source insists that Lotus plans to be around for the rest of the season, as well as next year. Their logic is that Lotus is pulling from F1, and a portion of the F1 money would go to improvement of the Lotus IndyCar motor.
Honestly, this has been such a craptastical PR nightmare for Lotus, I would think they'd be better off putting their tail between their legs and sneaking out the back door quietly.
|