[Team] Team Lotus to confirm name and Renault bits but Grp Lotus start Norfolk Civil War?

[Joe Taylor]

Originally Posted by diddy100

article on local Norfolk paper today - Lotus Racing to annouce name change to Proton 1 Team Malaysia very soon. Group Lotus to confirm entry into F1 with $21m investement in Renault F1 - team to renamed Team Lotus

I thought Proton and Fernandes were arguing?

[Chiefy]

Originally Posted by Fox89

Enzo Ferrari's legacy is being carried on by new people in the same way as Colin Chapman's is, the only difference is the Lotus name stopped competing for a while.

This is sort of the point I was making. The "name stopped competing for a while", as opposed to the "team stopped competing for a while". Now the name is back. But the team isn't. It's an empty shell.

It's worrying to think that the whole Lotus brand (Group Lotus, Team Lotus, whatever) could be set to tar F1 with this warring over the rights. Me no like.

[Sodemo]

So, Gascoyne's team will effectively become "Proton" and the current Renault team will become "Team Lotus"?

[duke_toaster]

Originally Posted by Joe Taylor

I thought Proton and Fernandes were arguing?

Originally Posted by E.B

I cant see it being called Proton 1 Team Malaysia to be honest. Proton owns Lotus which are in turn buying into Renault (allegedly), so why would they also want to pay money to the outgoing Lotus to get the naming rights to call the team Proton. Having just been in a messy legal discussion.

Surely it would be more likely to incorporate Air Asia in the name, as it is owned by Fernandes and also one of the teams sponsors.

Or Tony Fernandes has cracked it, lobbed the toys out of the pram and sold out.....

To me that's why I've getting a few truck loads of salt delivered to my place to take with that news story. Not as if I'd trust a local paper - even if it's a Norfolk one - to produce such high level motorsport news before Autosport et al.

[Fox89]

Apparently Joe Saward doesn't read the Norfolk paper! Who seem to have everything the wrong way around, incidentally. There is no way Renault F1 will be called Team Lotus unless they bought the rights to do so off David Hunt and/or Fernandes, which would have been big news.

And 'Proton 1 Malaysia F1'? The same Proton Fernandes is having legal battles with over the Lotus name. Nonsense, surely.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Fox89

Apparently Joe Saward doesn't read the Norfolk paper! Who seem to have everything the wrong way around, incidentally. There is no way Renault F1 will be called Team Lotus unless they bought the rights to do so off David Hunt and/or Fernandes, which would have been big news.

And 'Proton 1 Malaysia F1'? The same Proton Fernandes is having legal battles with over the Lotus name. Nonsense, surely.

None of this makes any sense and there hasn't been any talk of this anywhere else. Sounds like they've probably picked up a few fag ends from some of the staff at Hethel.

[duke_toaster]

Come to think of it, the local newspaper might have got everything wrong and got things right in the same way in Renault becomes Proton 1Malaysia F1 (the worst team name I've heard in motorsport ever). Out of interest I have whoised saveteamlotus.com, like most things these days it's with anonymous domain hosting (and I can't blame anyone), but it was registered last Sunday (for readers in the future - the 14th of November 2010). Sadly any long statement of an opinion in the format of a website will remind viewers of Time Cube, but even so, this looks largely factually accurate, and if it is it looks damning.

As a fan of motorsport and a person who appreciates good engineering, I'd probably be more confident if the Lotus road car operation - in my opinion, in terms of name (admittedly largely cultivated through motorsport) second only to Ferrari - was in the hands of Tony Fernandes rather than Proton. I have a great deal of respect for what Tony Fernandes has achieved. Before he entered F1, he bought a failing airline from the Malaysian government for less than the amount of change I have in my pocket (he bought it for about 50p or something) a few months after 9/11 wiped huge amounts of money out of the airline industry and turned it in to a roaring success. His F1 team has been run well, a genuine resurrection of what is one of England's greatest sports teams ever, getting 10th in the WCC despite having the least preparation. Together with Mike Gascoyne (and I feel that they have a great working relationship from what I've seen outside, he's finally found a team where they'll let him actually design a car) they have built up a great team that can do great things in the future (certainly next year I would not be surprised if they are right on the back of the main pack or in it, although they would not be failures if that was not the case). It would be a shame if some suits in Kuala Lumpur or the new CEO they have just hired, aiming to pursue a risky strategy of trying to enter a crowded market place where his former employer was a big player, wrecked this good work.

[Fox89]

What I find really damming is all the Group Lotus promotional material featuring Team Lotus cars that the website brings up. It would be hilarious if, as a result of pressing the matter of 'Team Lotus' through the courts, the ended up having to pay compensation for improper use of TL trademarks

[duke_toaster]

That would have to be a separate legal case, but it would still be interesting to see if Team Lotus won, the reaction amongst the suits in Kuala Lumpur would be pay per view material.

[ASCII Man]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

That would have to be a separate legal case, but it would still be interesting to see if Team Lotus won, the reaction amongst the suits in Kuala Lumpur would be pay per view material.

I would actually pay to see that!

[duke_toaster]

Quick point, Group Lotus appear to have the teamlotus.com web domain, a quick whois shows they updated it on the 27th of October this year. I remember a while ago teamlotus.com going to one of those "this domain is free, meanwhile here's a dodgy search" things.

[Rgms320]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

Quick point, Group Lotus appear to have the teamlotus.com web domain, a quick whois shows they updated it on the 27th of October this year. I remember a while ago teamlotus.com going to one of those "this domain is free, meanwhile here's a dodgy search" things.

You should have registered it in your name at that time, Duke. Think of how much fun you'd be having right now collecting bids for the domain from Bahar and Hunt.

[P38 in workshop]

Now there is a website dedicated to the matter.http://www.saveteamlotus.com some fairly entrenched opinions there.

[duke_toaster]

I've heard that that account is based on David Hunt.

[Teretonga]

perhaps the more significant element is that Lotus Racing (TF) had licensed the name from Group Lotus. If it could not enter under Lotus Racing it would have to lose the money it had earned under the 2010 season for 10th team in the championship, just as the money earned by Honda was forfeited when it had to apply for entry under the name Brawn.

Lotus Racing would have to reapply under a new name, and in doing so forfeit what it had earned from the 2010 campaign.
If there was a fight between TF and bahar over some thing and the licencing thing was a deliberate atttempt to hurt TF by exposing his racing team than Bahar has even less of my respect.

[duke_toaster]

What if it was a straight transition to Team Lotus without any of this Group Lotus interference? Supposedly there is some form of historical payments system that makes the fact that supposedly Lotus Racing/Team Lotus have been considered a Cleveland Browns style continuous entity with Team Lotus prior to 1995 a relevant issue for prize money.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

Quick point, Group Lotus appear to have the teamlotus.com web domain, a quick whois shows they updated it on the 27th of October this year. I remember a while ago teamlotus.com going to one of those "this domain is free, meanwhile here's a dodgy search" things.

Group Lotus registered teamlotus.com with godaddy.com, which expires on 25.10.2012, however they don't have teamlotus.co.uk, someone in Cambridge, Gloucestershire has it.

[duke_toaster]

Teamlotus.net is registered by tucows.com, was created in 1999, updated on the 19th of April and expires in April. TeamLotus.my, however, redirects to LotusRacing.my (bearing in mind some of Tony Fernandes' previous comments, I reckon they will probably go .com rather than .my in future).

[duke_toaster]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88452

Mike Gascoyne : "They [Group Lotus] seem to have announced that they're going to join every racing series around the world, and the only question is who's going to pay for it? ... Because they seem to want to do every racing series that there is, and for a loss-making car company, that seems to be slightly perplexing. But if that's what they want to do, good luck to them."

Also, http://www.who.is/dns/saveteamlotus.com/ (link from someone on Joe Saward's blog) indicates that the Save Team Lotus site DNS servers are based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA. Can't think that any participant would have a particular link to Fort Lauderdale to be honest other than web hosting companies. Teamlotus.com (the one that is being owned, or if David Hunt is legally correct, squatted, by Group Lotus) has the DNS servers in Scottsdale, AZ, USA. Lotusracing.my has been jumping around more than someone who thought that the House of Pain song was a literal instruction.

EDIT : In other news, this is what Dani Behr thinks about the new Lotus models having had a whirlwind romance with the cream cakes - according to those stats the New Elise is over 200kg heavier!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88452

Mike Gascoyne : "They [Group Lotus] seem to have announced that they're going to join every racing series around the world, and the only question is who's going to pay for it? ... Because they seem to want to do every racing series that there is, and for a loss-making car company, that seems to be slightly perplexing. But if that's what they want to do, good luck to them."

That's interesting because Danny Bahar was interviewed by indycar.com and said:

"What we tried to do with the Lotus brand is to pay our heritage and our past justice. I believe our heritage is all about motor racing. As you could see, this is all about motor racing. We believe that our road car should have a significant connection with the motorsports program. That's why we have also announced recently we will be going and racing in LeMans, GT2, GT4 car racing, obviously IndyCar."

The whole interview is here if you want to read, though it does mainly pertain to Lotus's IndyCar involvement:

http://www.indycar.com/news/show/55-...ms-with-lotus/

[Joe Taylor]

LMP, GT2 and GT4 I completely understand as LMP can offer a way of developing technology, GT2 is where all of Lotus's rivals compete and GT4 is for lightly modified track racers, which is (or at least was) very much Lotus's way of doing things. I can also understand sponsoring a team in Indycar and designing an aerokit as it's a good way to appeal to the American market and there is a history of Lotus and Indycar. I can also understand Formula 1 although a) I don't like the way they are trying to bully their way into the name and b it seems very ambitious and will require a lot of money.

What I can't understand is GP2 and GP3. Would anyone decide to buy a Lotus after seeing a few cars in their colours in junior formulae? I also have no idea why they're building an engine for Indycar as they don't build engines for their road cars.

Really, All I think Lotus should be doing is Indycar aero and team sponsorship for the American market and GT4 and GT2 as this showcases their models.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Joe Taylor

LMP, GT2 and GT4 I completely understand as LMP can offer a way of developing technology, GT2 is where all of Lotus's rivals compete and GT4 is for lightly modified track racers, which is (or at least was) very much Lotus's way of doing things. I can also understand sponsoring a team in Indycar and designing an aerokit as it's a good way to appeal to the American market and there is a history of Lotus and Indycar. I can also understand Formula 1 although a) I don't like the way they are trying to bully their way into the name and b it seems very ambitious and will require a lot of money.

What I can't understand is GP2 and GP3. Would anyone decide to buy a Lotus after seeing a few cars in their colours in junior formulae? I also have no idea why they're building an engine for Indycar as they don't build engines for their road cars.

Really, All I think Lotus should be doing is Indycar aero and team sponsorship for the American market and GT4 and GT2 as this showcases their models.

That all makes sense.

As for GP2 and GP3, I wonder if they have a customer car in mind like the 125 'F1' customer car?

The Lotus IndyCar engine is a rebadged Cosworth.

[Asa]

Danny Bahar is going to turn Group Lotus into a huge liability with so many race programs. The group will go bust and then someone friendly to him will pick it up for a few quid.

[Teretonga]

There is no way this is a realistic engineering or development programme by group lotus. They don't have the money or the resources to support it nor is Lotus profitable enough to sustain that sort of spending. It has to be underwritten by the the parent company (Proton) and they are part owned by the government so ultimately it is taxpayer dollars under writing the whole programme.

Bahar may talk it up but he has to get results and frankly I'll be waiting for him to deliver.... He'll have to or it will be a complete failure and may even force the Group to the wall.

[Félix]

The Group Lotus top guys come from Red Bull's and Ferrari-Maserati's race departments; they are used to big programmes that look unlikely to succeed and that's why I don't underestimate what's going on there, whatever it is exactly that explains and backs these projects. I think these guys means business and will achieve a lot things (first in court and then on the racetrack) and that will give us a lot of interesting race programs.