Online launch for new Lotus TL11 on January 31st

2011 F1 season

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Fairuz Fauzy, Lotus-Cosworth T127 shakedown, 2010

Lotus will reveal their new car online at 5am (GMT) on Monday 31st January.

The car, called the TL11, will be shown in pictures in the team’s “Lotus Notes” newsletter.

The car’s model number is a departure from the T127 convention used last year, which implied a link to the car numbering used by the former Team Lotus. A spokesperson told F1 Fanatic the change in numbering was to “simplify what could have been another point of contention”.

Heikki Kovalainen will be the first to drive the car on February 2nd, the second day of the Valencia test. Jarno Trulli will drive the car on February 3rd.

After that Lotus will remain in Valencia for a further test day after the other teams have departed. Trulli and Kovalainen will share the car for the private test day when the team will also use for filming purposes.

Use the F1 Fanatic Google Calendar to keep track of all the launch, test and race dates for 2011.

View the list of 2011 F1 drivers and teams.

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    Keith Collantine
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    30 comments on “Online launch for new Lotus TL11 on January 31st”

    1. Which Lotus!? Sorry, had to be done. I know which one you’re on about ;)

    2. Team Lotus or Renault?

      1. Team Lotus that same team that made their debut last year own by Tony Fernandez.

    3. Team Lotus

    4. That’s a fair statement of intent from Team Lotus there. That’ll make them the first ones to officially roll out their 2011 contender won’t it?

      I reckon this team is going to surprise a lot of people this year. All the noises coming out of that factory have been extremely positive, and all this controversy surrounding the name seems to have really galvanised the team’s determination to succeed.

      Good luck to them I say. Imagine the egg on Bahar’s face if TL manage to beat Renault at some point this year.

      Stranger things have happened!

      1. Nope, Ferrari are revealing all this Friday!
        To be honest I doubt any person working in an F1 factory is going to come out and say “we’ve built a right dog this season” are they?

      2. Ferrari is earlier, having the car launch on Friday 28th.

        But Team Lotus is second only to Ferrari (they would like to hear that at the end of the season ;-) )

      3. 28/01/11 – Ferrari
        31/01/11 – Lotus, Sauber, Renault
        01/02/11 – Williams
        04/02/11 – McLaren
        07/02/11 – Virgin
        10/02/11 – Force India
        03/03/11 – HRT

        1. Don’t forget Mercedes and Toro Rosso will also be unveiling their cars on February 1st.

          1. Red Bull too.

      4. I think you may have been swept up in the PR Chris.

        They have all been at it with the expected PR this time of year.

        McLaren are being “Brave” and “exciting” and have been on Twitter alot.

        Good luck to them all though, but you have to have losers to have a winner so not everyone can be happy!

        1. Well, yes, there is that. But then the other teams don’t seem to be making the same kind of fuss. Maybe it really is all PR driven hype, but look at the changes they’ve made to their personnel, and consider the switch to using the Renault engine with the Red Bull gearbox (a proven race and championship winning combination) and you see that they are at least making efforts to build a successful package. And don’t forget, by all accounts they started working on their 2011 car before anyone else did.

          Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for a minute suggesting we’re going to see them win a race, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of them becoming regular points scorers this season, and challenging the established midfield teams. All it would take is for a slight dip in performance from the Renault team and they could easily be fighting each other on track.

          It might all come to nothing, and they won’t even nip at the heels of Torro Rosso. But I’d be pretty surprised if that was the case. They have a decent team, solid financial backing, some good quality technical elements to their cars, and two very decent and consistent drivers in Heikki and Trulli. The elements are all there for a big leap up the table.

      5. No, stranger things have not happened.

    5. The biggest hilarity of all would be if this the Lotus was faster than the Lotus…………..

      That being Team Lotus – Renault being faster Lotus Renault – Renault. That would be a big middle finger to Mr Bahar, who I really don’t like for some reason!

      1. And if you can’t precisely state that reason and support it with arguments, that means you’ve been manipulated by PR :) cogratz :)

      2. I’d hope Gascoyne has been working on this car since the start of last season.
        Apart from aerodynamics, one key area the new teams suffered from was braking. Even discounting the loss of braking efficiency due to limited amount of downforce, it appears that the new team cars lacked a good braking balance and car dynamics.

        Solving that issue alone Team Lotus can find about 1.5 seconds or more on some tracks.

        1. Interesting point; I’d guess yer Ferrari or McLaren can build their own brakes frOm scratch whereas the lower resourced teams have to what, buy the best they can afford from the Demon Tweeks Motorsport catalogue? Where do you buy pads for a formula 1 car?

          Mark Webber would obviously support your theory though :)

          1. Well no team actually build their own brakes. But the braking system is another matter. When that is coupled with differential bias and suspension geometry, roll bars and all those other stuff, it can be a nightmare for a new team to sort out if they haven’t got experienced chassis engineers and a mountain of data.
            For sure Webber will not want to go skywalking anytime soon. :-)

      3. That would be a big middle finger to Mr Bahar, who I really don’t like for some reason!
        Because Fernandes was in the sport first. That’s the only reason why people like Fernandes more. If you read his statements and his Twitter updates in particular, he’s sprouting more Cold War rhetoric than Bahar. If Fernandes and Bahar were both trying to get into Formula 1 under the Lotus name this year, I think public opinion of Tony Fernandes would be considerably different.

    6. “Lotus Notes”?! Oh dear.

      1. :-) I was thinking the same thing.

    7. Lotus as in lotus Renault are just a title sponsor. We don’t call McLaren “Vodafone” do we? And it’s not just because they’re sponsors; did anyone call Sauber “BMW” last year? As much as I wish they would stop trying to connect themselves to the Team Lotus of old, TL is the only actual Lotus on the grid. I hope their use of those initials in the car’s designation is the first step in Fernandes calming down the PR.

    8. I find their chassis designation interesting. Before the team disbanded in 1995, Team Lotus always named their chassis parallel to the Lotus road car division. That’s why they never had sequential numbers. If a chassis for one year was named the T100, and the chassis for the next year was named the T104, then it meant that Lotus Cars had developed three road-going models in between. While they’d go on to be given names like the Elise and the Elan an the Esprit, when they were first conceived, they were always known by their project numbers, like T101, T102 and T103 (personally, I’m waiting for the T-1000).

      The chassis designation is interesting because it’s a break from tradition. Since Lotus Cars have unveied five new models since the launch of the T127, then the TL11 should rightly be known as the T133. I don’t think for a moment that this is Tony Fernandes giving ground to Dany Bahar, but it does appear to be a slight contradiction: they claim they’re in the right on this one, and that they have claim to the Team Lotus name, but then they go and break tradition with their chassis designation. If nothing else, naming the car the TL11 could be seen as an attempt to make the Team Lotus name their own by giving it their name instead of the name that would normally be used.

      1. I suspect the main reasoning is that they’re in the midst of a legal battle over the naming rights atm and to number their chassis based on what the other party is doing would probably not work in their favour!

        1. It’s Bernie’s world, these guys just advertise in it. The decision will have been made weeks ago and TL are just using the high court to save face. I’d put money on it.

    9. Why will they reveal their car that early in the morning, I know it’s winter in Europe & many parts of the world, I wonder how many people will wake up & watch the show.

      1. I guess it’s timed to allow for people in Malaysia to see it as well.

        Besides, this way at least the pictures will be up online ready and waiting when we all wake up and log on to F1 Fanatic!!

    10. I’m sorry, but… 5am? Car launch at 5am? Who’s up at 5am?

      Assuming they’re launching it in Norfolk or Spain and not spending loads of money shipping it out to Malaysia to unveil it, only to send it back to Spain later that day ready for testing.

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