I guess I set myself up to write this. A lot of what will follow has already been covered in a couple of threads, however, I thought it would make sense to put all of our eggs in one basket so to say.
So how exactly did it come to this? After a 16 year wait for the Lotus name to return to F1 it seems that next year we will have two of them and to make matters worse they are going to be at war with each other.
To begin with we have to go back into the mists of time to the early 50's and the birth of Lotus Engineering Ltd at Hornsey in London in 1952 which was the first and original Lotus company which initially developed race cars for the 750cc series. Lotus developed the Mark 6 in 1953 which had both road and race applications and then in 1954 Chapman split the works race team away from the engineering side of the buisness and Team Lotus was born. The engineering side of the company became Lotus Cars Ltd. The term Group Lotus wasn't used until 1959 and was the umbrella company for the various sub groups such as Lotus Cars and Lotus Components.
At various stages until Chapmans death in 1982 there were various companies that came under the Group Lotus banner including at one stage a boat building firm, a microlite firm and an overseas capital investment company called GPD that would have reprocussions in the wake of the Delorean collapse. In 1986 the bulk of Group Lotus was sold to General Motors but the important thing here is that the F1 team, then under the guidance of Peter Warr remained in the hands of the Chapman family and Fred Bushall (the former head of accounts and Group Lotus). In 1989 Fred Bushall was jailed in connection with the collapse of Delorean and Peter Warr left the team. Tony Rudd transferred from Group Lotus where he headed the engineering department to run the team. By 1991 Team Lotus was a shadow of its former self so the Chapman Familly deceided to sell up. Peter Collins and Peter Wright, two figures who had been closely associated with Lotus for many years completed a managemet buy out and for a brief while turned the fortunes of the team around. By 1994 the team was once again in financial trouble and after failing to score a point at the Italian GP where Johnny Herbert had qualified 4th before being punted off by Eddie Irvine in the new Mugan Honda powered car, Collins and Wright were forced to put Lotus into administration.
Now here's where it starts to get more relevant to today's mess. David Hunt, brother of 1976 world champion James purchased the team from Collins and Wright in early October 1994 and managed to put enough money together to complete the season. During the winter of 1994 work continued on the Lotus 112 while Hunt frantically sought to raise the cash required to compete. Unfortunatly Hunt failed to find the required finance and the team closed. In order to try and keep the name alive in F1 and have a further stab at bringing the team back the Lotus name and badge appeared on the 1995 Pacific GP car. Once again, further funding did not appear and aside from a holding company called "Team Lotus Ventures Ltd" the name lay dormant until the rumours of a reserection involving originally Litespeed F1 and then 1Malaysia F1 surfaced.
Now that's a pretty potted history of the Team Lotus side of things and it's relationship with Group Lotus yet it gets more complicated than that. While Team Lotus ran the formula one side of life there were cars built at Hethel for Lotus Components (which ceased to be part of Group Lotus in 1971) for use in F2, F3 and various other formula. Group Lotus also provided the cars and backing for a semi works endurance team using the Esprit Sport 300 between 1993 and 1996 so there has been a precedent for Group Lotus to run its own racing programmes.
After Group Lotus was sold to General Motors in 1986 it remained in their hands until it was purchased by a finance company belonging to the Bugatti group. Ownership by Bugatti didn't last that long and the company was sold again with the Malaysian Government fuding a buyout by Proton. After long time Lotus man and CEO Mike Kimberly retired in 2009 the CEO position was given to Dany Bahar who was formaly the Senior Vice President (Commercial and Brand) at Ferrari where among other things he was responsible for F1 marketing and worldwide Ferrari Licensing and Commercial activities.
Since Bahar's arrival Lotus has announced the launch of 6 new models in the coming 4 years including cars directly aiming at the Ferrari market. Throughout 2009 Lotus has also announced several new racing ventures including the development of a GT car and a tie up with KV Racing in the Indy Series. Bahar has since annoucned that Lotus will be developing an Indy engine and Aero package to the 2012 regs and will be developing a GT1 class entry for Le Man and in 2012 an LMP2 entry. Further more Lotus have announced a tie up with ART to enter the GP2 and GP3.
Since the initiial annoucement from Litespeed that they were looking to return the Lotus name to F1, Group Lotus have strongly resisted any attempt to use the name without their authoritiy. It would seem that prior to the arrival of Bahar, Lotus had began to appreciate the boost to their marketing image that an F1 project would give them hence their renewed interest in motorsport projects however.
1Malaysia racing were granted permission by Lotus to use the name for the 2010 season and Tony Fernandes and Mike Gascgoyne were actively attempting to resolve the license issues surrounding the use of the Team Lotus name as far back as 2009.
Group Lotus has apparently made several attempts since 1994 to regain control of the Team Lotus brand from David Hunt who claims he has offered to discuss this with Group Lotus on several occasions.
With Renault Cars selling their stake in the Renault F1 team to Genji capital Group Lotus have purchased part of that stake and have now been announced as the title sponsor of the team.
So what we could see at the 2011 Bahrain GP is 1Malaysia racing entering as Team Lotus and in all technical respects being the son and heir to the original Team Lotus while Genji capital will enter the Renault F1 team as Lotus Renault F1. (and both teams taking each other on in GP2 as well)
So the big question is, why doesn't Bahar want to work with 1Malaysia ?? I honestly can't answer that question so has any one else got a clue??
The only thing I can see at the moment is that the good name of Lotus is being dragged through the dirt by all concerned. What really worries me is that Bahar seems to be overlooking the fact that Lotus has never in it's history managed to launch 6 new models and race simultaneously in Indy, F1, Le Mans, Endurance Racing and GP2 and 3. For a company that normally shifts a few thousand cars a year to go from this to challenging every big name in every field seems like madness. To cap it all we are in the middle of the worst global financial situation for a generation, so where is the money coming from ?? I hate to say it but in one of his last inteviews, Peter Warr was absolutely correct when he said that Lotus should have been left as it was, Team Lotus F1 1958 to 1994.
So how exactly did it come to this? After a 16 year wait for the Lotus name to return to F1 it seems that next year we will have two of them and to make matters worse they are going to be at war with each other.
To begin with we have to go back into the mists of time to the early 50's and the birth of Lotus Engineering Ltd at Hornsey in London in 1952 which was the first and original Lotus company which initially developed race cars for the 750cc series. Lotus developed the Mark 6 in 1953 which had both road and race applications and then in 1954 Chapman split the works race team away from the engineering side of the buisness and Team Lotus was born. The engineering side of the company became Lotus Cars Ltd. The term Group Lotus wasn't used until 1959 and was the umbrella company for the various sub groups such as Lotus Cars and Lotus Components.
At various stages until Chapmans death in 1982 there were various companies that came under the Group Lotus banner including at one stage a boat building firm, a microlite firm and an overseas capital investment company called GPD that would have reprocussions in the wake of the Delorean collapse. In 1986 the bulk of Group Lotus was sold to General Motors but the important thing here is that the F1 team, then under the guidance of Peter Warr remained in the hands of the Chapman family and Fred Bushall (the former head of accounts and Group Lotus). In 1989 Fred Bushall was jailed in connection with the collapse of Delorean and Peter Warr left the team. Tony Rudd transferred from Group Lotus where he headed the engineering department to run the team. By 1991 Team Lotus was a shadow of its former self so the Chapman Familly deceided to sell up. Peter Collins and Peter Wright, two figures who had been closely associated with Lotus for many years completed a managemet buy out and for a brief while turned the fortunes of the team around. By 1994 the team was once again in financial trouble and after failing to score a point at the Italian GP where Johnny Herbert had qualified 4th before being punted off by Eddie Irvine in the new Mugan Honda powered car, Collins and Wright were forced to put Lotus into administration.
Now here's where it starts to get more relevant to today's mess. David Hunt, brother of 1976 world champion James purchased the team from Collins and Wright in early October 1994 and managed to put enough money together to complete the season. During the winter of 1994 work continued on the Lotus 112 while Hunt frantically sought to raise the cash required to compete. Unfortunatly Hunt failed to find the required finance and the team closed. In order to try and keep the name alive in F1 and have a further stab at bringing the team back the Lotus name and badge appeared on the 1995 Pacific GP car. Once again, further funding did not appear and aside from a holding company called "Team Lotus Ventures Ltd" the name lay dormant until the rumours of a reserection involving originally Litespeed F1 and then 1Malaysia F1 surfaced.
Now that's a pretty potted history of the Team Lotus side of things and it's relationship with Group Lotus yet it gets more complicated than that. While Team Lotus ran the formula one side of life there were cars built at Hethel for Lotus Components (which ceased to be part of Group Lotus in 1971) for use in F2, F3 and various other formula. Group Lotus also provided the cars and backing for a semi works endurance team using the Esprit Sport 300 between 1993 and 1996 so there has been a precedent for Group Lotus to run its own racing programmes.
After Group Lotus was sold to General Motors in 1986 it remained in their hands until it was purchased by a finance company belonging to the Bugatti group. Ownership by Bugatti didn't last that long and the company was sold again with the Malaysian Government fuding a buyout by Proton. After long time Lotus man and CEO Mike Kimberly retired in 2009 the CEO position was given to Dany Bahar who was formaly the Senior Vice President (Commercial and Brand) at Ferrari where among other things he was responsible for F1 marketing and worldwide Ferrari Licensing and Commercial activities.
Since Bahar's arrival Lotus has announced the launch of 6 new models in the coming 4 years including cars directly aiming at the Ferrari market. Throughout 2009 Lotus has also announced several new racing ventures including the development of a GT car and a tie up with KV Racing in the Indy Series. Bahar has since annoucned that Lotus will be developing an Indy engine and Aero package to the 2012 regs and will be developing a GT1 class entry for Le Man and in 2012 an LMP2 entry. Further more Lotus have announced a tie up with ART to enter the GP2 and GP3.
Since the initiial annoucement from Litespeed that they were looking to return the Lotus name to F1, Group Lotus have strongly resisted any attempt to use the name without their authoritiy. It would seem that prior to the arrival of Bahar, Lotus had began to appreciate the boost to their marketing image that an F1 project would give them hence their renewed interest in motorsport projects however.
1Malaysia racing were granted permission by Lotus to use the name for the 2010 season and Tony Fernandes and Mike Gascgoyne were actively attempting to resolve the license issues surrounding the use of the Team Lotus name as far back as 2009.
Group Lotus has apparently made several attempts since 1994 to regain control of the Team Lotus brand from David Hunt who claims he has offered to discuss this with Group Lotus on several occasions.
With Renault Cars selling their stake in the Renault F1 team to Genji capital Group Lotus have purchased part of that stake and have now been announced as the title sponsor of the team.
So what we could see at the 2011 Bahrain GP is 1Malaysia racing entering as Team Lotus and in all technical respects being the son and heir to the original Team Lotus while Genji capital will enter the Renault F1 team as Lotus Renault F1. (and both teams taking each other on in GP2 as well)
So the big question is, why doesn't Bahar want to work with 1Malaysia ?? I honestly can't answer that question so has any one else got a clue??
The only thing I can see at the moment is that the good name of Lotus is being dragged through the dirt by all concerned. What really worries me is that Bahar seems to be overlooking the fact that Lotus has never in it's history managed to launch 6 new models and race simultaneously in Indy, F1, Le Mans, Endurance Racing and GP2 and 3. For a company that normally shifts a few thousand cars a year to go from this to challenging every big name in every field seems like madness. To cap it all we are in the middle of the worst global financial situation for a generation, so where is the money coming from ?? I hate to say it but in one of his last inteviews, Peter Warr was absolutely correct when he said that Lotus should have been left as it was, Team Lotus F1 1958 to 1994.
Great post! Thanks for clearing that up for me.
annoyed I'm becoming.
