If you tune in to the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix this weekend, you may notice something a little odd. There are two teams calling themselves Lotus – Lotus Renault F1 and Team Lotus. How did it happen? It is a long and complex story.
Joe Saward wrote a good summary of the history. But the shorter version goes something like this.
One of the great stories of 2010 was the arrival and relative success of Lotus Racing, a team founded by Malaysian Air Asia and Tune Group Billionaire Tony Fernandes and former Jordan, Benetton and Toyota Technical Director Mike Gascoyne.
With the arrival of the cost cutting regulations last year, Fernandes saw an opportunity enter Formula 1 and use the Lotus brand to instantly give his team a supporter base he could build on.
Fernandes got in touch with Proton, owners of the car company Group Lotus and negotiated a five year license to name his Formula 1 team ‘Lotus Racing’.
The deal was done.
Gascoyne lead the development of a Formula 1 car which went from concept to track in a little over 3 months and former race winners Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli were signed to drive for the team.
As season 2010 progressed Lotus Racing appeared to be in the best position of the three new teams, they had a sound structure, competitive drivers and had avoided the drama of their rookie counterparts.
Unfortunately at some point in the middle of the year, Group Lotus got cold feet about the arrangement and terminated the Lotus Racing license based on an alleged breach of the license conditions to do with team merchandise, a breach Lotus Racing deny (Adam Cooper posted their response).
Fernandes was not about to give up on the significant investment he made and went looking for an alternative.
At the Singapore Grand Prix, Fernandes announced that his team had reached an agreement with David Hunt, the final owner of the former Lotus F1 team, to acquire the rights to the Team Lotus brand, and as a result, Lotus Racing would become Team Lotus in 2011.
As Joe describes in his article above, Team Lotus and Group Lotus were established by the late Colin Chapman, Group Lotus to build road cars and Team Lotus to build and race F1 cars.
These companies operated as related but separate entities to ensure each were protected from any potential financial problems that might arise in the other.
After Chapman’s death in 1982, the car company was sold to General Motors (who sold it on to Proton in the mid 90’s) and the F1 team was sold to Peter Collins and Peter Wright. By 1994, the wheels had finally fallen off and Team Lotus went into administration.
Hunt who had been involved in obtaining sponsorship for the team in previous years bought the rights to the team from the administrators and attempted to revive it in 1995 with the Pacific Team Lotus Formula 1 team.
This initiative failed and Hunt has remained the owner of the rights to the Team Lotus business ever since.
Not long after this announcement was made, Group Lotus CEO, Danny Bahar, a former Red Bull and Ferrari marketing man, announced grand plans for the expansion and repositioning of Group Lotus as a premium brand – ultimately a Ferrari competitor.
His goal is to take production from 2,700 cars a year to over 8,000 by 2018 and will achieve this by launching five new models between 2013 and 2018. He talks about the plan in this interview.
In that interview, he describes the key role motorsport would play in this rebranding exercise. They would involve themselves in several of the top categories in the world, including entering IndyCar as sponsor of Takuma Sato’s KV Racing car, entering into a partnership with Nicolas Todt’s ART GP2 team, developing a GT2 race car, and finally, an equity, sponsorship and branding agreement with the Reanult F1 team, resulting in the name change from Renault F1 team to Lotus Renault F1. T
This agreement is how we come to have Lotus Renault F1 and Team Lotus in the same championship.
Sound stupid? It is.
The argument between the two Lotuses is currently before the high court in the UK. It is a complex case with each making claim and counter claim against each other.
Group Lotus claim that they are the only rightful owners of the Lotus name, while Team Lotus are claiming breach of contract for the premature end to the Lotus Racing license. These are questions that will be answered by an army of lawyers.
We’ll have to wait and see what the outcome is, but while we wait, there are a few questions I’m wondering about
Five new premium cars by 2018!
If in the unlikely event they can pull it off without bankrupting themselves and the rest of the Proton group, how are they likely to stand up against the established marques, like Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin, which Bahar discusses in the video?
Sounds insanely optimistic to me.
Why not just sponsor Fernandes’ Team Lotus and avoid the fuss?
According to Bahar, it is because they don’t have time to wait for Team Lotus to move to the front, they need to be with a competitive team now. On the face of it, that makes sense, but why on earth did they sponsor F1’s former king of crash Takuma Sato in Indycar, and then increase that deal for 2011 after he spent two thirds of 2010 in the wall?
Sato was, and is, never going to be anywhere near the top teams like Penske, Ganassi and Andretti.
Lastly, and for me, most importantly, do either team have a claim to the heritage and history of the formerly great Team Lotus? In my view, not at all.
The Team Lotus, which won six world championships with Jim Clarke, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti, went broke in the mid 90s.
There is nothing left of it other than great memories and a few bits of paper.
Since sealing the deal with Renault, Group Lotus have been making a big fuss about their F1 history.
Check out this video.
And they signed Bruno Senna as reserve driver, after they had already announced that Romain Grosjean would be test and reserve driver. I can’t help but feel that is more about strengthening the perception of team’s connection to Team Lotus’ history than Senna’s ability.
The fact is the current Renault team has nothing to do with that history. It has a wealth of success in its own right – two world championships with Michael Schumacher, when it was Benetton, and two with Fernando Alonso.
Interestingly, they do have a tie with Ayrton Senna, but is has nothing to do with his race winning drivers for Team Lotus Renault between 1985 and 1987.
Senna made his F1 debut with the Toleman F1 team, which was sold to the Benetton Group and became Benetton F1, which was sold to Renault, which has now been rebadged to, yes, Lotus Renault F1.
The sad thing about this mess is we have two great racing teams caught up in this branding rubbish when they should be focusing on racing and attracting fans. All that this current situation does is cause confusion amongst spectators and damage to both teams.
I’ll be watching the outcome of the court case with interest.
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