[JacobP]

There are too many myths being promulgated on the web forums and comments on the F1 news sites regarding Lotus signing Maldonado. Lets look into this:


Myth 1: This is disgraceful because the top teams do not hire pay drivers.

Reality: It's almost certain that McLaren was lured by Mexican sponsorship money when they signed Sergio Perez for 2013. Even though Ferrari denies it, the Santander group probably had a hand in replacing Kimi Raikkonen with Alonso in 2010.


Myth 2: Lotus is a top team.

Reality: Lotus was at best a "best of the rest" team since around 2008, when it was the Renault F1 team, until Kimi arrived. Moreover, Lotus is no longer a factory team and it doesn't have that many great sponsors. The 2012 and 2013 were surprisingly strong cars, but this was done at the expense of "borrowing" >100M from Genii Capital. Clearly, Genii Capital is sick of sinking so much money into this team, and they want now to recoup some of that investment.


Myth 3: Lotus sold out to mediocre pay drivers.

Reality: They still have Grosjean. Grosjean has matured a lot this this year and showed surprisingly strong performance, specially in the second half of this season. It is entirely sensible approach to go with one strong driver and one weaker driver. Certainly, Grosjean+Hulkenberg might have been better, but Lotus can't afford this.