Despite the promising form of its F1 team in 2010, Renault is tipped to reduce its involvement in F1 next year.
Links
Renault team set for Lotus Cars tie-up (Autosport)
“Sources suggest that the outfit is close to finalising a deal with Lotus Cars for the company to become a major sponsor – and potential minority shareholder – of the team. The outfit itself could become known as Lotus Renault from the start of next year.”
Austin F1 site receives unanimous approval (Will Buxton)
“Developers for the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix?óÔÇ×?ó today announced that the Austin Environmental Board unanimously approved the site plans for the future Formula 1 United States Grand Prix venue, in a 6-0 vote, that is scheduled to host its first event in 2012.”
Ecclestone sees hope for F1 strugglers HRT (Reuters)
“I believe HRT, the people from Spain, have now got a guy that I know, a financial backer.”
Jenson Button out for bit of fun as F1 world title defence slips away (The Guardian)
“I was a mess last year at this point of the season. It was pretty stressful, especially being in Brazil in my team-mate’s home country. But the McLaren was super quick here last year even when they didn’t have a very competitive car, so I think we can still qualify well. I think we need to qualify on the front row. That’s the important thing. If we don’t qualify on the front row it is very difficult.”
“Biggest rumour doing the rounds in Sao Paulo for a couple of days is that Webber [will] leave [Red Bull] at the end of the year.”
Comment of the day
Incredulous lays the blame for Mark Webber’s unhappiness at Red Bull squarely at Helmut Marko’s feet:
Marko loves Vettel and will do everything he (Marko) can to get Vettel over the line. There has been more than enough evidence to support that this year (Turkey, Silverstone even Korea). Did Marko come out to support Webber as he walked back to the pits? He sure made sure he was front and centre for Vettel.
Incredulous
From the forum
It may not be proper high definition but F1 is on BBC One HD this weekend.
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Claudio Sampaio!
On this day in F1
Ayrton Senna took pole position in his final appearance for McLaren in unusual circumstances on this day in 1993.
The team tried to warn Senna he was low on fuel as he started the lap, but he couldn’t hear them due to a radio glitch. Despite the confusion ringing in his ears, he claimed pole position for the race, beating Alain Prost’s Williams by four tenths of a second:
Image © Renault/LAT
Hamish
6th November 2010, 0:16
Will be interesting to see what this years Lotus team ends up being called.
Scalextric
6th November 2010, 0:31
And which team gets to use traditional Lotus livery. Which I’ve enjoyed seeing this year.
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
6th November 2010, 1:35
Well I suppose they both have every right to use it, although that would be pretty silly.
This is the Group Lotus IndyCar livery that they’ve been using this season. It’s pretty similar to the F1 version, but with a split stripe down the nose:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/autopia/2010/04/lotus-indycar.jpg
Spectator
7th November 2010, 1:10
Have you noticed the renault logo on the Redbulls and the renovation of the contract and the pleaseant words spoken by Christian Horner and other personal about renault can this mean that renault is focusing redbull
Mach1
6th November 2010, 0:32
I think
“The Team Formally Known As Lotus”.
Would be a catchy one. :)
LewisC
6th November 2010, 0:46
Formally, or Formerly?
I approve of the former, not of the latter.
Does beg the question: does Lopez want to go racing as Team Lopez?
Mach1
6th November 2010, 1:00
hehe I was trying to get a pun on the “formula”…formally ….Formuly? haha
Your right formerly is correct though.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 1:04
Could be worse. It could be Team Jennifer Lopez.
Alex Bkk (@alex-bkk)
6th November 2010, 1:14
Re: Team Jennifer Lopez
Why was the first though that crossed my mind along the lines of an illegal double disfusers?
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 2:12
Probably because you’re thinking about boobs.
Pinball
6th November 2010, 5:28
Aren’t double diffusers at the back? So wouldn’t they be her butt? Hey with these witty comments we’re almost as hilarious “cough” as the commentators on Jalopnik.
Adam Tate
6th November 2010, 7:37
Pinball, lol amazing comment man!
Hamish
6th November 2010, 0:57
Haha thats simply brilliant.
Poor Colin Chapman however. I don’t think he or anyone would have thought that many years down the track a group of Malaysians would be squabbling over the use of his teams name.
There were mumblings earlier this year that this isn’t genuinely Lotus. With whats going on now I think its pretty clear cut.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 1:06
I think Fernandes-Lotus is more genuinely Lotus than Bahar-Lotus is.
Hamish
6th November 2010, 1:19
Agreed. I lot of people have a lot of time for Fernandes. Those that didn’t at the beginning have definitely warmed to him.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:09
Agree with that. He has went to a lot of effort to get the Chapman family behind his team, he came to an agreement with David Hunt about the formal rights to the Team Lotus name and usage of the logo in F1 and he did put enough money, clever minds and solid drivers into their bid.
I hope and am convinced, that would he part with the Team Lotus he will do so knowing what he got in return though (Money, political clout/favours or whatever).
He will still have the goodwill of building a solid team and the team itself (why not buy that Group Lotus, Renault F1 will hardly be cheaper, will it?) to build up a new brand around it.
DeadManWoking
6th November 2010, 1:12
The real question is – Who gets custody of Colin’s Cap?
Icthyes (@icthyes)
6th November 2010, 12:12
It should be neutral and given to HRT, henceforth it will be known as Colin Kolles’ Custody of Colin’s Cap
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
6th November 2010, 1:31
I quite like F1 Rejects’ suggestion: Fondmetal Team Malaysia!
(but it’ll probably just be boring old Air Asia GP)
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:12
I am not too sure of that. Air Asia is quite a brand of its own right now. And just imagine the bad publicity of an F1 crash for an airline.
I would suspect Fernandez to come up with a new brand idea to build up.
bosyber
6th November 2010, 10:56
That is a good point, “Air Asia crashes out again” might not be good publicity :-p
deanmachine
6th November 2010, 2:30
The question is which team are you on?
Personally i’m on Team Lotus… oh wait…
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 1:18
Why do I get the feeling that Renault, Group Lotus and Fernandes are all playing Russian Roulette?
Sush Meerkat
6th November 2010, 8:47
I was ashamed of being a Renault fan when Flavio was top dog and now I’m ashamed of them for this farce.
If this turns out to be true, its a kick in the teeth for the fans of Renault and to Kubica.
They better not mess this up.
Ned Flanders (@ned-flanders)
6th November 2010, 1:29
This is very tangencial to F1 so apologies, but I’ve just watched the excellent film The Insider, which, to cut a long and complicated story short, is about the evilness of the tobacco industry.
I’ve just had a look at the backstory a bit on Wikipedia, and I found myself on the Phillip Morris page. Now, I’ve always thought that Mr Morris, as the was some sort of cigarette entrepreneur who owned loads of major brands like Marlboro, bypassing F1’s fag ban and generally raking in the money.
Well, turns out he’s been dead for over 140 years! I put this up because I bet I wasn’t the only person who thought he was just a single extraordinarily wealthy man
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 1:34
I bet he died of lung cancer.
Dan Thorn (@dan-thorn)
6th November 2010, 10:22
I thought exactly the same, that he was some kind of tycoon overlord who sat in a room wearing a mauve smoking jacket, cigar in mouth and brandy in hand barking orders to yes men about which driver/team to sponsor.
Learn something every day…
The Sri Lankan
6th November 2010, 1:39
where does this leave Toyota? i thought Lotus has a solid engine deal in place with Toyota for their road car engine supply.
Adam Tate
6th November 2010, 7:46
Great point Sri Lankan, I’ve been wondering about that too. It appears that they are also crafting a large partnership with Cosworth for Lotus production models too. Interesting that neither of the proposed Team Lotus(es?) will use Cosworth engines next year.
Then there is the 125 Exos track car, which looks an awful lot like an 09 F1 machine, built by Lotus cars, independent of the Fernandes outfit, but it’s still powered by a Cosworth.
Lotus, what are you doing? Sort yourself out!
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:24
I think what the Group Lotus management is doing is about ego-tripping, not about doing bussiness (agree with Fernandez).
Both Lotus and Proton are not in the best financial position, their market share is with entry level sports cars for about $50-75K, now they want to
– develop the brand,
– develop new car models to go upmarket
– rebuild the production on a Renault and/or Cosworth platform instead of the Toyota deal they have now
– explain this to the current customers and try get them to go upmarket or at least not go away
– do their F1 customer car thing
– develop a IndyCar aero kit and partnering a racing team there
– support ART to do their GP3 and GP3 program on a technical level
– get involved in F1 through Renault F1? OK Lopez might be willing to run the team, but there will be some conflicts between Bahar, Goshn, Todt Jr. and Boulliard to manage.
It sounds like taking far to much task at once and making a big mess of everything and Lotus going bust again in short notice.
Now that does sound a bit like the Lotus saga after Chapman died, maybe the story had to be like this.
Ady
6th November 2010, 1:41
So to be clear,
The Renult F1 Team might be bought by Lotus Group, while Team Lotus has just anounced an engine deal with Renult Engines.
So there could be two different Lotus teams on the grid next year, both powered by Renult Engines?
Well that should be a battle to watch :)
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 3:00
No. The FIA will not allow two or more teams to compete under the same or similar names. If Group Lotus buy into Renault and have the rights to the name, then Lotus Racing will have to change their name. Team Air Asia and Feranndes Racing seem to be popular sugestions.
Ady
6th November 2010, 8:48
It’s all very confusing.
I thought Fernandes now had the rights to Lotus Racing? Considering the history of Lotus Racing, and that 1Malasia have already been racing under Team Lotus did they not get there first?
However because FIA want manufacutrers I guess they will side with the comapany that makes the road cars instead (money talks).
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:27
Fernandez is a clever bussinessman and knows how to work with the politics involved.
If the Group Lotus pushes for this solution he will probably make a deal to hand them those rights for something in return. It would surely be a deal making him win one way or another.
d-d
6th November 2010, 13:37
Actually, he was already pressed by Renault. He will get their engines since 2011 but he had to pay the price and give up Lotus name.
And I am happy for that outcome.
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
6th November 2010, 1:52
Even if he leaves Red Bull the only place he can land is Renault which I doubt will be able to deliver a better car then Red Bull to him.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 3:19
So what’s got me curious with this whole Lotus situation is this: what happens if the existing Lotus Racing team is declared to have the legal rights to the Lotus name? Group Lotus can’t exactly buy into Renault, because the entire point of buying into Renault is to use the Lotus name. And if Renault want to scale back their involvement, who is there to buy into them?
A few candidates do spring to mind. With the announcement of the Russian Grand Prix to be held in Sochi, it is believed that the Russians want to run their own Formula 1 team (rather than have some Canadian guy run under a Russian licence). Nikolai Fomenko, the owner of Marussia – one of Virgin’s sponsors and Russia’s only supercar manufacturer – is reportedly looking to get into the sport before 2014. They seem to want a Russian driver in the sport, and even if Renault drop Petrov, newly-crowned World Series champion Mikhail Aleshin is apparently on the market as well, but if he is going to race, his sponsor – Lukoil – needs to pay up because Aleshin does not have enough on his own. If Marussia raced, Aleshin could well find himself in the team.
Then there’s the South Koreans. Hyundai was reportedly putting together a bid to enter this year and had been toying with it since 2006, but then the global recession struck and they lost interest. There’s no indication as to how serious they were to begin with, and while the rest of Korea have said they want to see how the Korean Grand Prix plays out before committing to a team, this may be their one and only opportunity to get their foot in the door in the near future. Like the Russians, the South Koreans want one of their own in a racing seat, but unlike the Russians, there aren’t any Koreans in any level of competition at the moment, so it may be years before they finally come good.
Then there’s the Jacques Villeneuves and Epsilon Euskadis of the world. Villeneuve has practically given up on Formula 1, whilst Epsilon have been very quiet and some rumours suggest that they didn’t even have the budget to enter in 2011 to begin with; their entry was allegedly a publicity thing. Zoran Stefanovic is the rank outsider among the rank outsiders, so distant from the sport that he might as well be in another solar system. The last we heard from him, he was complaining about how the FIA took too long to decide on the stillborn thirteenth team. I don’t think Renault would sell to him unless they absolutely had to; in fact, I think they’d rather stay in the sport or shut the team down completely before they sold to Stefan GP.
I don’t think there’s too many others who would or could be interested. Volkswagen have shot down the prospect of entering Formula 1, ART Grand Prix never managed to put a budget together, and whilst Prodrive might be the fan favourite, they’re off running the new MINI Countryman WRC and have admitted that they cannot wage a Formula 1 campaign alongside the WRC. Others are even less likely; Carlin might be expanding into GP2 this year, but it is believed their WSR team will become the new Red Bull Junior squadron, and they haven’t expressed any interest in Formula 1 since their 2008 entry bid was rejected.
For the sake of preserving twelve teams in the sport, I think it is best that Group Lotus win the rights to the Lotus name and buy into Renault. Most of the other potential bidders are fairly remote, and there’s nothing to connect them to buying into the Enstone team except for my extrapolation of their desire to enter versus Renault’s desire to leave. A Lotus Renault team led by Danny Bahar might be pretenders to the title of Team Lotus even moreso than Tony Fernandes, but I genuinely think that Fernandes and his team have forged such an identity for themselves that they’d be welcome racing under their own name.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 5:19
Never mind; the Germans are reporting a court has settled in favour of Danny Bahar and that Tony Fernandes has agreed to rename his team ‘1Malaysia Racing’ as of next season.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
6th November 2010, 5:47
That’s a giant bummer.
Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey)
6th November 2010, 6:30
F1 teams named after countries should be banned.
‘Force India’ is still a silly name for an F1 team and ‘1Malaysia Racing’ is even worse.
Why not ‘Monsoon Racing’?
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 6:55
You kind of need a name that expresses what you are. When he created FIREFLY, Joss Whedon was stuck on the name for ages, because he wanted to find one that expressed power and speed, but agility as well; something that could be identifiable in profile. He chose FIREFLY because he associated the insect with those traits, and the ship Serenity became a Firefly-class transport.
In the same way, you want a team name that communicates your identity (when you’re not sticking to sponsor names, like Virgin). When he bought Spyker, Vijay Mallya no doubt envisioned the team as being a “force” among the teams, though aside from Spa last season, they’re yet to make good on that promise. When he bought the team from Honda, Ross Brawn toyed with calling it Pure Racing, but they rejected it because they’d be known as Pure-Mercedes, and they didn’t want to overstate their relationship with Mercedes (they went with Brawn GP after his receptionist suggested sticking his name above the garage). But the core idea was there: Pure Racing. It was an ethos; you got a mental picture of a team that was stripped of excess, of politics and of anything that might slow them down so that they were focused on racing and only racing.
To me, the name “Monsoon Racing” suggests a team that is quick in the wet, but not much else. Maybe something that overbearing and inevitable, but not much that suggests speed. I honestly think that Lotus Racing could get by on the Fernandes name (though Adrian Fernandez had an Indycar team a while ago), but in the absence of ideas, I think they should just run with something simply: Team Air Asia or 1Malaysia are fine by me, though the former is preferrable.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:31
I’d more suspect that it was not as much a court settlement as a settlement between Group Lotus and Fernandez (mediated by Matahir) to keep this from getting messy.
That fits with the tweets from Fernandez and makes sense for him. Why battle and alienate part of the politics in Malaysia, when he can just agree to let Group Lotus have those rights and build up another brand in F1 from next year onwards with the reaps of this deal?
US_Peter (@us_peter)
6th November 2010, 5:43
Given the good will Fernandez has in the sport at this point, and the fact that he has the support of the family (not to mention the cap), I think that there would be some massive ill will towards Group Lotus as newcomers in F1, and they would almost certainly be seen as very disingenuous as regards to their use of the Lotus name in the sport.
It looks like things are headed in that direction if all of yesterday’s rumors are to be believed though. I hope that it’s all hearsay and doesn’t come to fruition. If it does I wonder if Fernandez will simply return Chapman’s cap to the family. He’d have no reason to keep it, and I can’t imagine they would turn around and offer it to Bahar. It’s a shame really, it would’ve been special to see the team bring it out a few years down the road if and when they get their first win.
As far as other investors that would be interested in buying into Renault, Parris Mullins and Cypher Group are theoretically still out there, and Chad Hurley could still have an interest in the sport as well.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 6:31
Well, Renault – the company, not the team – referred to Lotus Racing as 1Malaysia Racing. They may have just been politically-correct, but it does lend weight to the Bahar argument.
And like I said, Group Lotus buying into Renault and otus Racing going in their own direction preserves twelve teams.
d-d
6th November 2010, 13:58
Renault Sport will supply engines to current Lotus Team aka 1Malaysia, provided they agreed to change their name. Fernandes had little choice.
New Lotus Team not enough credible? Why? They will have Renault’s Enstone team, and traditon of both Renault F1 and Lotus. Lotus Cars is after all the real Lotus, more than one air line.
I am happy for that outcome.
As for Lotus Cars – for them it is business-motivated entry to F1, they seem to try to emulate success of Ferrari and McLaren to promote their sport commercial brand. For F1 it’s usually better than an airline.
So it’s much better solution for current Renault F1 team than just prestige-driven limited cash from a bunch of Russian sponsors. Kubica should feel more happy, and Petrov we’ll see but probably less.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 21:02
I don’t agree. Lotus cars is the leftover of what was bought by Proton after GM dumped it after failing to rebuild the bankrupt company.
For now all Lotus have is a market share with lower ties sportscars and a load of big plans.
Ferrari was racing and started to build cars, then he was very successufull in racing and built a car empire on that in the last 60 years. McLaren are very successfull in F1 for over 30 years, they have built their own supercar allready and have the experience of building larger numbers of top range cars with the Mercedes SL car range and now build on that to be a sports car manufacturer.
Lotus will have to develop their image upmarket(thats with F1), build up production capacities with completely new technology, design a top notch sports car AND then sell them to make it all work.
And that from a background of never making a profit since it went bankrupt decades ago.
d-d
7th November 2010, 11:15
it’s a bit more complicated it seems. Proton – owner of Lotus Cars is apparently closely cooperating with another state run company petrochemical Petronas. This makes all Lotus venture (and F1 entry) *a bit* more credible financially. Also Petronas is present in F1, so easily they could sponsor new Lotus Team.
But Lotus Cars in my humble opinion likely can’t succeed to revitalise their commercial brand without some significant brand promotion through presence in F1. What they need is an image of succesful team, so buying out Renault seems a great deal. If also backed by Petronas money they could deliver a strong team.
silencer
6th November 2010, 5:36
another interesting tweet from tony :
Much said about our name. To many people reading to much into it. We are lotus racing this season. Next season we are still lotus.
Makes sense for racing team and group to be reunited. How and weather it will and in what form will form discussions over next few months.
so, is tony fernandes and group lotus has come to some sort of agreement?
in my opinion, I don’t think malaysia government will want to take a risk by allowing PROTON to take over RenaultF1 thru Group Lotus PLC. there’s behind the scene discussion among the party involved that is still going on.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
6th November 2010, 5:50
It would make more sense for Group Lotus to buy into 1Malaysia Racing than Renault. I hope Bahar comes to his senses or is helped to find his way there by others in Malaysia.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 6:32
Except Bahar wants to run the team, or at least be President like Luca is in Ferrari. He won’t deal with Fernandes.
Adam Tate
6th November 2010, 7:53
This whole Lotus thing is getting epically ridiculous. Bahar could be like Luca and Fernandes could be like Domenicalli. That would work just fine.
Sad to see Renault pulling out when they’ve come so far, but at this point I’ll just be happy if one Team Lotus still exists next season.
And please, please Tony, don’t change the name to something stupid. There need to be interesting names in F1 again.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:39
Except Bahar knows, that Fernandez is a lot more successfull a bussinessman and well connected than will be good for him.
He will never be able to dictate where the team goes.
That said, Bahar would do well to concentrate on actually getting Group Lotus to build and sell the cars if he wants to go upmarket with it.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:37
So there is the question of how far Proton / the malaysian government will allow Bahars ego to rule, instead of common sense and sensible bussiness.
Surely having Fernandez continuing as Team Lotus to promote the brand running for his own risk and without much money or effort needed from Proton nor Group Lotus would be smart.
Lotus gets the image from F1 anyhow but can focus on actually building cars and trying to use the image to go upmarket like they are hoping to do.
bosyber
6th November 2010, 11:05
Doesn’t that sound just a bit too much like common sense after all we have heard from Proton/Lotus Group?
I hope it does happen, and Fernandez does seem to be well connected and smart enough to make top people in Malaysia see that too, but I worry that won’t be enough when big ego’s are being inflated.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 21:04
It does sound like to much common sense for Group Lotus management, but it might sound like a good way to go at it to the Malaysian Proton management and politicians.
d-d
6th November 2010, 14:06
of course no, becasue Bahar and Lotus Cars need success for their own commercial brand, so they need competitive team and people and 1Malaisia can’t compete with Enstone on this field. And Fernandes shouldn’t play fool with Proton about the brand in the first place.
Another link is that Renault is planning to deliver engines to commercial lotus cars.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 21:08
But the 1Malaysia team will be a lot cheaper than the Enstone Renault team.
And I feel their image would be helped a lot more from having Team Lotus run by a clever entrepreneurial guy (not unlike chapman himself) building up a team to reach success (his specialty) than bashing this team, buying into a rebranded Renault team and profiting from the efforts already made. It will hardly feel like a Lotus effort, diminishing the value from a marketing perspective.
d-d
7th November 2010, 11:26
As for F1 entry, the money is not a priority for Lotus Cars but image. What I understand Lotus Cars looks to position their brand in direct competiton with Ferrari to be a sort of british Ferrari so they simply can’t allow themselves to be associated with inferior 1Malaysia team. Simply, they don’t have advanced facilities and expertise like in Enstone and won’t be a competitor for years to come. This is the only reason.
MPJ1994
6th November 2010, 7:55
I think theres a problem with some of the links on the homepage.
When the articles in the 3rd ‘row’ are right clicked, instead of getting the menu bar that gives you the option to open the link, save target as… etc, you instead get a menu bar that is the same as if you right click elsewhere on the page.
Hope that makes sense… :)
Chippie
6th November 2010, 9:10
This reminds me of the situation in swiss army knives. Two companies share the legal rights to produce them, so one company calls themselves ‘the original’, the other company calls themselves ‘the genuine’.
Funkyf1 (@funkyf1)
6th November 2010, 9:13
Incredulous should win comment of the year as his words explain it all. Helmut Marko controls the strings attached to Christian Horner who in effect runs the team. Helmut himself shouldn’t even be in the pits, yet he is at most races, making sure Vettel is looked after. As much as Horner is team principal it seems he only controls the staff, not the teams decisions.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:41
Happy birthday to you Claudio Sampaio, enjoy the weekend.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:42
I like Buttons attetude LOL for this statement (from Keiths link):
BasCB
6th November 2010, 9:47
Interesting comment from Bernie in that article
I was thinking something like that would have been the reason for him speaking in the negative a couple of days ago. He was just pushing HRT to be realistic about their demands in return for backing and not throw away that deal.
Typical for Bernies style (see Korea being bashed and confirmed only days later, as well as earlier deals alike).
I suppose seeing HRT with solid backing is as good a present for his 80. birthday as Bernie would like.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 10:04
From the recent announcements made around HRT it really seems that Carabante and Kolles have finalized their dealings to give the team a sound foundation.
Bernie informs, they have a finacial backer. Williams agrees to supply the rear end, Willis is on board for the design and Toyota Motorsport will probably support his team in some areas.
From what is said here http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/246658/former-telefonica-president-joins-hispania-racing/
, the team is looking good to continue, otherwise a succesfull guy like the former Telefonica president (a early backer of Fernando Alonso) would not join in.
They would have Pedro developing the car on track (a bit like Schumi being there to do the testing on the race tracks this year) and get some driver with talent but some money in the other seat.
And when I think about it, why not have Maldonado there? He is solid, has talent and knows how to win and offers good financial package.
His management talking to Williams might be about them paying for the rear end deal, and the testdrive after Abu Dhabi fits in there. HRT will probably offer their own driving for another stash of money, so Williams agreed to give him a test of skill in their car.
This is all starting to make sense, let’s just hope Group Lotus starts making sense and sits down for some dealmaking with Fernandez and all is settled.
Icthyes (@icthyes)
6th November 2010, 9:54
If Lotus Racing lose their name, then perhaps the BBC will stop spending half their time talking about them every weekend. That’s the only bright side I can think of.
RobertG
6th November 2010, 14:17
But do we need Lotus?
Calum
6th November 2010, 10:01
First time viewing the new site on my pc, and it looks really good :)
Only thing is , while it’s easy to see which page is the round up from the homepage, it is impossible to tell on the ipod version of F1 Fanatic because of the lack of sub heading.
This Renault thing:
Lotus Racing will have Renault Engines.
And Renault Cars are buying Lotus Cars (WHo are group Lotus, right?)?
Which means they want to rename as Group Lotus- Renault?
But we will already have Lotus Racing- Renault!?!?!
confused.com
BasCB
6th November 2010, 10:06
Yesterday Will Buxon expressed his confusion very nicely as well:
https://www.racefans.net/2010/11/05/lotus-confirm-2011-renault-engine-deal-red-bull-extend-contract/comment-page-1/#comment-468492
BasCB
6th November 2010, 10:15
James Allen reports, that the FIA confirmed introducing licences for team members as well as introducing the possibility
in their Friday meeting.
How Balestre would have loved the possibility to just sanction Senna in this way to bar him from winning over Prost.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
6th November 2010, 11:02
Why, did Senna get a lot of speeding tickets?
bosyber
6th November 2010, 11:11
I have no idea, but if he had them, this rule could have been used against him nevertheless.
It is a good thing Todt put distance between his position and punishments to drivers/teams, so that rules like these are less likely to be used politically, because the Mosleys and Balestres would surely have found opportunities to use this for their games.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 21:17
Who knows, maybe the police officers just asked him for a signature instead. But you have got my point there about Balestre.
I like the new proposals they agreed on for the International Tribunal and the International Court of appeal (see http://adamcooperf1.com/2010/11/06/will-new-fia-disciplinary-system-guarantee-fairer-trials/ ).
Only thing I am not sure i understand, is exactly how the “competitors in the 5 FIA world championships”(F1, WRC, WTTC, FIA GT and Karting?) will name these judges.
Icthyes (@icthyes)
6th November 2010, 11:39
I’m wondering, do you even need a road licence to get a Super Licence?
This has always been a stupid gimmick. The punishment for someone behaving like a racing driver on the roads is to ban them from behaving like a racing driver on a race track?
Electrolite
6th November 2010, 12:58
Nah, I think Lewis Hamilton actually passed his normal driving test like a year after he started in Formula 1. Crazy stuff.
Accidental Mick
6th November 2010, 14:25
If my memory is correct, Graham Hill was actualy WDC before he got a road license.
BasCB
6th November 2010, 21:10
I am pretty sure that is not a requirement.