Genii sell stake in Lotus to new Russian sponsors

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In the round-up: Genii Capital have sold a stake in Lotus to the team’s new Russian backers Yota Devices.

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Lotus Formula 1 team sells stake to new Russian backer (Autosport)

"Lotus Formula 1 team owner Genii Capital has agreed to sell a stake in the squad to new Russian backer Yota Devices Company, AUTOSPORT can reveal."

Marussia test debut delayed by technical glitch (Formula1.com)

"The MR03’s testing debut is subject to a delay while we resolve a small but frustrating technical issue," confirmed Marussia, who hope to join the four-day Spanish test session later in the week."

Pirelli to hold wet-weather day at Jerez (ESPN)

"The track will be artificially soaked on Friday in order for the wet tyres to be tested, while Pirelli is also bringing a special winter slick hard tyre to cope with the cooler temperatures expected this week."

STR’s Key questions Lotus nose design (Adam Cooper)

James Key: “The Lotus nose needs clarification, but it’s a very clever idea. The question really is, is it within the spirit? We’ll see. It’s really down to the FIA and Lotus to discuss that obviously. If they run it, then it’s passed the impact test, and they’re happy.”

Five things to look forward to in pre-season testing (The Telegraph)

"Jenson Button said at the end of last season that the first test could see so many problems with unreliability, with entirely new V6 turbo power units, that the whole thing could end up being "hilarious"."

Anthony Davidson on why Jerez is the perfect place for a test (Sky F1)

Davidson: "Every circuit is unique in its own way and I’m not really sure you could compare Jerez to any other on the current calendar. It’s an old-school track and very different to the modern-day Tilke circuits."

McNish completes BBC team for 2014 (BBC)

McNish: "Now that I have hung up my racing helmet, I am really looking forward to joining the BBC team again for what I am sure is going to be a fantastic new F1 season."

In pictures: F1 drivers behind the camera (BBC)

"The stars of Formula 1 have taken photographs for a charity auction organised by Zoom on 7 February in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. Here is a selection of the photographs, beginning with a picture of the Caterham pit crew by Giedo van der Garde."

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Comment of the day

With the launch of Toro Rosso’s STR9 prompting yet more comments about how the 2014 grid will look, tmax believes that fans may not find the cars so ugly once they become used to them.

Not to sound too philosophical, the looks are purely subjective and a matter of getting use to.

Remember up until 2008, the rear wings were looking wider/shorter and the front wings were looking very complex. In 2009 when the regulations changed, the new cars emerged with substantial changes. Back then we all said how ugly it looks ( I too felt the same !!!). Now when I go back and take a look at the cars of 2008, I feel that the post 2008 cars are much better looking. Especially with cleaner front wings. The front wings of 2008 McLaren was so complex with so many criss-crossing parts .

I believe it is just a matter of getting used to the looks.
tmax

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43 comments on “Genii sell stake in Lotus to new Russian sponsors”

  1. Wait, Lotus actually managed to sell something to someone?

    1. Actually it’s good news that F1 is attracting new sponsors. It boggles me how much hustle the pinnacle of motorsports goes through to find sponsors. There’s something wrong with F1 financing and it needs to be addressed ASAP.

      F1 must get its mojo back. It must be a place brands want to be associated with, just like NFL’s Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup or UEFA Champions League.

      1. The problem is not the financing. The problem is the expenditure. Teams are spending over $100 million a season, with sponsorship making up a good chunk of that. Sponsoring a team is therefore a very expensive proposition.

    2. Lets see how it turns out, that sale to Infinity Quantum was brandished as being a done deal early last year too @prisoner-monkeys, I remain as sceptical as you are here!

  2. Anthony Davidson on why Jerez is the perfect place for a test (Sky F1)

    Davidson: “Every circuit is unique in its own way and I’m not really sure you could compare Jerez to any other on the current calendar. It’s an old-school track and very different to the modern-day Tilke circuits.”

    So this is a good thing now? In 2012 when F1 went to test at Mugello, everyone was complaining about how little resemblance that track had to others in the calendar…

    1. Why don’t they go and test at Motorland Aragon then?

    2. I don’t even pay attention any more to pretty much anything that current or former drivers are saying. They are basically just saying whatever they feel without putting too much thought into it. Especially those interviews where they are praising or comparing drivers, that’s just pointless and yet, people get so caught up in it.

      It’s all just a pointless drivel most of the time.

      1. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I find articles of the sort “Driver X can win the championship, says former driver Y” less interesting than the back of the milk carton.

      2. petebaldwin (@)
        28th January 2014, 11:22

        You have to bear in mind though that these guys dont seek out the press because they have something urgent to tell the world.

        They get asked these questions on the spot and give answers. If you were an ex F1 driver and someone walked up to you and said “What do you think of Jerez as a track?”, you’d probably end up saying something fairly dull because what can you say that would be exciting!?

        The press then publish the story as though these ex drivers desparately needed to get something off thier chest. I doubt Anthony Davidson has been struggling to sleep with worry that the world might not know his views on whether Jerez is similar to other tracks or not.

  3. We’ll see if the new investor can help Lotus get back on track. ;)

    Bernie’s wet dream realized, at least in practice.

    Interesting comments regarding the Lotus twin nose idea from Key of STR. Especially since they were considering something similar.

    If it’s Tuesday, it must be Jerez. Gentlemen, start your engines…

    1. Still Monday in the US :\

    2. Pirelli can’t get it wrong this year. Too much bad publicity last year and I’m sure they will do much better this time.

      1. @jcost Not much attention will be directed at the tyres (rather the cars), which Pirelli said will be more conservative than previous years, so less pressure will come with that for them I hope!

    3. James Key: “The Lotus nose needs clarification, but it’s a very clever idea. The question really is, is it within the spirit? We’ll see. It’s really down to the FIA and Lotus to discuss that obviously. If they run it, then it’s passed the impact test, and they’re happy.”

      @bullmello – pretty sure that the double-diffuser controversy in 2009 established once-and-for-all that there is no “spirit” to the regulations. Rather, there is either “yes” it conforms to regulation as written, or “no” it does not conform … a strict legalistic interpretation?

  4. On COTD: while there was some discussion on the aesthetics of the 2009 generation of cars at the time, with some of there cars looking quite ugly – the McLaren and BMW in particular were mingas that year – many of the cars looked great with the ‘cleaner’ look, wide slicks, even on the front wheels, and eventually the shark fins, which I was a big fan of.

    However the pictures of all the cars so far paint a very different and uglier picture. As has been mentioned noses that have been compared to genitals, broken noses and the like are turning what should be the best looking and fastest race cars in the world into a farce. Surely if the FIA can mandate a change in mirror position mid-season like they did in 2010 they can mandate a mid-season change on the nose regulations. While a change to the nose regs would have more drastic effects on performance surely the FIA cannot stand by to watch the ugliest race cars ever compete for the world championship?

    I just hope Mr Newey has some secret nose job ready for the RBR because if he can’t make an aerodynamically efficient nose pretty then no-one can.

    1. Surely if the FIA can mandate a change in mirror position mid-season like they did in 2010 they can mandate a mid-season change on the nose regulations.

      A change to the nose regulations now would need agreement from teams.

      If the rules are to be changed it will be for 2015.

      1. Not to mention that the Mirrors were also changed hinting towards safety measures, and the drivers were also starting to get pretty vocal about not being able to see through them at the time.

        Changing noses during the season is as likely to get the teams to agree unanimously as it was for them to agree on ditching exhaust blowing or DDD mid season.

    2. @clay

      Surely if the FIA can mandate a change in mirror position mid-season like they did in 2010 they can mandate a mid-season change on the nose regulations.

      They could. However, unlike the change in mirror position, a change in the front end of the cars to make them mor attractive would fundametally alter the front-end aerodynamics of the car, costing the teams millions of dollars to redevelop pretty much everything. The finger-nose it not merely an appendage that has been added to the car for the sake of convenience – it will have some kind of effect on the overall aerodynamics of the cars. And rewriting the rules so that the fingers can simply be removed gives an unfair advantage to teams like McLaren and Williams and Toro Rosso, because if the likes of Ferrari and Lotus had had the opportunity to consider designs that did not mandate the finger and allow for a higher nose, they would have developed them.

    3. I find the 2010-13 cars look better than the 2007/2008 cars, but the 2009 cars still look terrible. I’m holding out hope that by next year the noses will be less ridiculous. Then again, I have no problem with the stepped noses whereas others still cant stand them.

    4. I’m already getting used to this new era looks. I like the MP4-29 and Sauber’s C33.

    5. I think the argument over some eras looking better than others has been mainly quite pedantic subjectiveness. We’ve argued over the differing proportions and dimensions of the cars, and we all have our own idea of attractiveness whether it’s paintings, people or cars.

      This year it’s different. They aren’t any more out of proportion than they were in previous years, the dimensions haven’t changed beyond recognition. People (including myself) are up in arms BECAUSE THERE IS A DONG ON THE FRONT OF THE CARS. I’m not exaggerating here, just look at them!

      Frankly, it’s quite embarrassing – with DRS and marshmallow tyres, F1 is already becoming a bit of a laughing stock in the motorsport world, and now it has to contend with this.

    6. petebaldwin (@)
      28th January 2014, 11:30

      I don’t think most of the cars look that ugly, they just look a bit rediculous. I like the variation amongst the cars though. If you look back at the Williams with their Walrus thing going on, it was different. It didn’t look great but it was unique and I respected them for that.

      These little todgers on the front of the cars just look stupid though. They aren’t being used as a design innovation – they are there because of badly written rules. If everyone went with a Ferrari/Mercedes style nose except for one team who thought a willy might be a better option, it would deserve some credit as one team being innovative but as most teams have gone with the same design, it shows that this is being done because of badly written rules.

      Having said that, I am of the understanding that it’s largely the team’s fault as they were the ones unwilling to accept more rule changes that would be needed to stop this. It’s easy to blame the FIA but it appears that yet again, the teams are largely at fault.

  5. I find it totally confusing when people start questioning the ‘spirit’ of designs. It’s clear Lotus have just thought out of the box, obviously whether or not it will be a great idea is unknown. F-ducts, double diffusers, flexible floors and wings, oh and FANS! All of these were questioned but isn’t ingenuity the essence of F1? I love the fact that we’ve already seen 3 totally different design.

    I hope the FIA doesn’t decide against Lotus’ idea due to pressure from other teams, although if double points is anything to go off…

    1. Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
      28th January 2014, 0:46

      People will generally “question” the spirit of certain designs when they’ve been outclassed.

    2. Its because different people have different interpretations of the rules.
      Some people may believe a particular design to be perfectly legal, Yet another reading the same regulation may see a design to not be legal.

      The F-duct was another matter as there was an agreement amongst the teams (Via the technical working group) to not work towards the stalling of wings. Its why the other teams were so surprised & angered when it was discovered that while agreeing in fota technical meetings to not go down that route McLaren had been actively researching stalling the rear wing.

    3. It is most interesting to see Key of STR questioning the Lotus nose since they were considering something similar.

    4. Yeah, that’s a bit hypocrite, as the spirit of the rules is not having vibrator noses either lol, anyway….
      From all the nose designs we’ve seen it would be fair to say that the anteater one is the most conservative and easier to implement.
      I guess the Lotus and Ferrari ones have more potential but they require more effort to make them work and to pass the crash tests.

    5. I looked at what Key mentioned yesterday several times, but he does clearly say that he does not think this is illegal, just “not in the spirit of the rules” – well that is no argument to change anything during the season (Neweys designs – and a lot of Brawns, Byrnes, Chapmans, etc – for example have been far out of that spirit of the rules more often than not), more an argument that will come up in discussions for tweaks made before next season @adamrholt

      1. I think that by now it is well established that the rules have no “spirit” whatsoever. Anything that isn’t explicitly illegal is legal.

  6. It seems SV has been training hard in the offseason. He’s got the looks of someone’s who’s just knocked a couple of tenths off his midnight feeding bottle pitstops.

  7. The message of support on the side of the Mercedes is nice. But- and I realise I’m being petty here- why does it have to be a hashtag? I hate seeing them in places where they make little sense anyway (so anywhere not twitter basically), but here it makes the message seem cheap to me. It seems even cheaper if you think that Merc may be using it as an opportunity to get something trending. Why does a message of support have to be linked to social media?

    1. I guess because they want the wider public to show their support too. I agree in principle though, a simple message would be more heartfelt.

  8. Hearing some speculation that Martin Whitmarsh could be moving to Lotus to replace Eric Boullier as team principal.

    1. That would make more sense than Lopez remaining in that position since his background is business, not racing.

    2. I guess he is the most qualified guy that is suddenly available @gt-racer, although so far I only saw mentioned that Lotus approached MW, not that he showed signs of interest (although maybe he won’t be saying much until he arranges his exit terms with Ron Dennis) – I thought it also could be a move by Lopez to get some kind of agreement between themselves and McLaren over Boullier and when he can start

  9. Hearing a technical director talk about “spirit” of the rules gave me a good laugh. I’m sure the dildo cars are all in the spirit of the rules. FIA actually wanted to have a huge dildo at the most prominent place of every car.

  10. Keith, did you forget the Merc video?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2EVt5-Mcog

  11. Ah, Lotus. My first thought was to check that “Yota Devices Company” wasn’t an anagram of “Quantum Motorsport”.

    1. Yota/Megafon is one of largest telecommunication companies in Russia. Yota Devices is a separated company that making phones, LTE modems and other communication devices.

  12. So Eric might have been right all along :)

    1. Caterham now also had to delay their launch because they are still putting the car together @synapseza

    2. As it turned out, Eric was not happy with what he had to be saying to the press for a while :)

  13. I don’t think it’s illegal, it’s just whether it’s in the spirit of the regs.

    The spirit of the regs are of no relevance at all. If the design is within the written word of the regs, it is legal. The whole point of this kind of engineering competition is to develop the best possible solution within the rules set down. This necessarily involves looking for the best way to interpret the rules as written. It is not for them to guess at what the rule makers intended: What is written is what you work with. End of.

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