It has been suggested that careful reading of Team Lotus and Renault F1 press releases reveals the result of the confusing Team Lotus vs Lotus Cars (Proton) naming dispute will be a new name for the current Team Lotus, possibly 1Malaysian Racing, and a new owner for Renault F1.
Renault would still provide engines to Tony Fernandes' team but would see its remaining 25% stake in the current F1 team to Lotus Cars. The new team would be called Lotus-Renault and appropriate the traditional green and yellow livery revived by the Air Asia boss.
More super ambitious plans for the Dany Bahar led company after their deluge of planned new road car products announced at the Paris auto show. A good exit strategy for Renault which would get to keep the profitable part of the gig, engine supplier to Red Bull, Lotus and "1Malaysia Racing" while getting fully out of the headache part.
(Via Massimo Costa/autosprint)
end of post
Quite a few F1 journos seem to putting this story out. If true its harsh on Fernandes who has put a lot work into getting the Lotus brand back into F1. Big brother seems to have come in and stolen the new toy.....
ReplyDeleteI don't see why it is good to name racing teams from countries/regions: 1 - it's not A1GP, 2 - a racing team deserves better name. Force India, 1Malaysia, US Grand Prix, Hispania...what will be the next, "Giusppes Italian Pizza Racing"?
ReplyDeleteMostly Lotus wanted this done because it was destroying it's brand identity. Tons of people attribute Lotus to amazing chassis and racing success. Simply because some guy in Malaysia had a big % stake in Lotus, he opened up a piss poor F1 team under it's name, that is doing terribly and is an embarrassment to Lotus the car manufacturer/chassis engineer.
ReplyDeleteIt's shown that people really do the "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" thing in the sports car world. Lotus getting huge world exposure for being laughable and destroyed by rival commercial named brands like McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes by laps, not seconds, is horrible for business.
This sounds like a wonderful decision to get the Lotus name into a much, much, much more developed team -- and as AC said, a graceful exit for Renault.
I see Renault pretty much confirmed it today. Factor in all the GP2 deal and this gets pretty confusing!
ReplyDeleteThey've effectively ruined the Lotus heritage by showing the fatso Elise in Paris, so now they want to buy credibility from Renault? Oh come on...
ReplyDelete