Lotus Racing to become Caterham?

Duke

Duke

Duke

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The saga continues.. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/94515

Speaking to AUTOSPORT, Fernandes said: "I always had a problem with 'am I really Team Lotus?' I always said that era was theirs, we were just bringing it back under new ownership. It was up to the fans whether they liked us or not.

"But there was a business behind it as well. You can't have a name and not monetise it. Effectively we are marketing someone else. I don't think this is healthy for anyone – Lotus Renault, Team Lotus, whomever.

"I've always said that protecting the brand is paramount and it's not me that started all this. I didn't have a claim, they (Group Lotus) had a claim. And they lost that case. But I've always had the door open and it may be a win-win for everybody and we walk away.

"I also always said we wanted to be in the car business and I never hid that fact. And now we have Caterham."
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Would be nice to get it sorted out. Just seems odd that Renault seemed to get all involved in the Lotus name as soon as Lotus Racing formed :confused:
 
Been hearing rumours about this for some time, along with rumours of a move for the team to Silverstone. Would be a shame to see it happen after all the work & trouble the team went through to acquire & keep the Team Lotus name. Question being, will it be a sale of the Team Lotus name to Group Lotus or licensing the name to them?
 
I don't see either team as Lotus anyway, just a few chancers piggybacking off someone elses history ;)

As said it seems a bit strange having gone through all the battles to walk away from the name but we don't know about the amounts of money changing hands to make it a "win win for everybody".

I like the colour of the Team Lotus car but nothing else about them makes them lotus for me.
 
Part of the reason I have heard for Tony having a change of heart and being willing to give up the Team Lotus name is to buy a stake in the Malaysian Airlines.

Would go well with the talk that Group Lotus plan to buy Renault GP & rebrand the team. No idea where the hell all this money they are throwing about is coming from though.
 
Its all caused by Lotus Cars forcing their way in through the Lotus Renault branding and the black/gold colours. Tony has a point, he is marketing someone else's company by having the world Lotus on his car, while he owns Caterham. If Lotus Cars were not in F1, then it would be fine, but because they are its confusing things, and I expect Lotus Cars have offered Tony a large sum of money to drop the Team Lotus name and leave it out of F1 all together. That way Tony can advertise his own interests (Team Air Asia Caterham F1, perhaps) and Lotus Cars can continue to bastardise the history of Team Lotus by pursuing more use of old liveries and names, just without the key use of Team Lotus as a name, and, while having as little claim to the true name as Tony, having completely the wrong mentality about going racing.

Its a shame, but I can see why Tony is thinking about it. He had the right idea, but Lotus Cars have just refused to play ball, so it makes sence for him to drop it.

Its a shame though :(
 
Never really understood why everyone thinks they're the "better" Lotus anyway, since, as dannyjo22 said, they're both just piggybacking on a reputation they did nothing to gain.

Using the Caterham name makes more sense. :)
 
Weebull said:
Never really understood why everyone thinks they're the "better" Lotus anyway, since, as dannyjo22 said, they're both just piggybacking on a reputation they did nothing to gain.
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Mostly because Genii-LOLtus-Renault is the same team (with a lick of paint and a name change) that rigged the result of the Singapore GP not so very long ago, and Team Lotus is a plucky outfit toiling away towards the rear of the field setting themselves up for a big vault up the grid.
 
And the fact that Team Lotus actually own the name, which is more of a claim to a link to the original Team Lotus than Renault can claim by being sponsored by Lotus cars.
 
It's all to do with how much Fernandes makes renouncing the Lotus name.

Team Lotus won the court case and are entitled to keep using it now. To me, it has always sounded like a daft business decision to be marketing someone else's name around the world, especially now that Tony F owns Caterham.

He's a wily fox though, he'll only give up the name if paid enough to do so. Win-Win in his books.
 
Thats not technically true.

Fernandes owns the name Team Lotus and so was allowed to use it regardless. Group Lotus took them to court making a claim that it was some sort of copyright infringement and that Group Lotus had a claim to the Team Lotus name (note, 'Team Lotus', not just 'Lotus').

Group Lotus lost, so were told that Fernandes could use Team Lotus all he liked as it was a name he owned. Remember, this all started before the whole Lotus Renault GP renaming came in (although I expect after Group Lotus has started thinking about doing it internally).

So if Group Lotus hadn't started sponsoring Renault and renamed the team, you would just have Team Lotus on the grid, with a clear legal standing that they were nothing to do with Group Lotus.

The confusion however has come from Group Lotus trying to muscle their way in (and in my view, trying to steal the spotlight away from the rather popular Team Lotus) by stealing livery ideas and branding the Renault team to make it look like a Lotus team. Most other Group Lotus motorsport teams run in a green and yellow livery, again in my view to deliberately muddy the waters and confuse things. GP2 is a good example, where Group Lotus sponsor the ART team, yet like to call the team 'Lotus' and run in green and yellow in a deliberate attempt to stop Fernandes branding his Air Asia GP2 team (which also run in green and yellow) as Team Lotus. It worked, Fernandes' GP2 team is now Caterham.

So in simple terms, Group Lotus lost their legal claim to the Team Lotus name, so instead are trying to prevent it being used by making things complicated and difficult for Fernandes.

Its worked, but at what price? The 2 best things to come from Colin Chapman (Team Lotus and the Lotus 7) are now together again, but in someone elses hands. Group Lotus have also lost some credability ( LOLtus Renault GP, for example).

I would be really interested to know what was the real tipping point in this whole thing, as Lotus Racing joined the grid in 2010 with the full backing of Group Lotus and its parent company, and the blessing of the Chapman family. I wonder what Fernandes did (or didn't do) that meant Group Lotus decided he was infact enemy number 1...
 
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Skeeter said:
I would be really interested to know what was the real tipping point in this whole thing, as Lotus Racing joined the grid in 2010 with the full backing of Group Lotus and its parent company, and the blessing of the Chapman family. I wonder what Fernandes did (or didn't do) that meant Group Lotus decided he was infact enemy number 1...
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It was just a matter of unfortunate timing. The deal for Fernandes to use the Lotus name was done just before Dany Bahar took over at Group Lotus. Once Bahar and his people were in and had their feet under the table it became obvious that he wanted the Lotus brand in F1 but, not unreasonably, he wanted to control the marketing of that brand. For whatever reason he felt that the Fernandes run team wasn't compatible with his plans for the branding of Group Lotus and wanted to get out of the deal and do things his way.
 
kaiowas said:
It was just a matter of unfortunate timing. The deal for Fernandes to use the Lotus name was done just before Dany Bahar took over at Group Lotus. Once Bahar and his people were in and had their feet under the table it became obvious that he wanted the Lotus brand in F1 but, not unreasonably, he wanted to control the marketing of that brand. For whatever reason he felt that the Fernandes run team wasn't compatible with his plans for the branding of Group Lotus and wanted to get out of the deal and do things his way.
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Yeah, it certainly looked like Dany Bahar pulling the punches from the outside. I'd like to know how much truth their was in the contractual breach claims Group Lotus made against Fernandes regarding merchandise and things. They just seemed to go away, suggesting they had little foundation and were just a negative PR smokescreen Group Lotus were trying to put up.

Name changes aside, rumour is that Team Lotus (Air Asia, Caterham, Fernandes Racing, whatever) will have the 5th largest budget for next year behind RBR, McLaren, Ferrari and Merc. They seriously need to be solidly in the midfield next season.
 
Yep they look like a 'Red Bull' team in the making. Will still take them a few years to get the right staff in the right places though.
 
dannyjo22 said:
I don't see either team as Lotus anyway, just a few chancers piggybacking off someone elses history ;)
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Like McLaren are? Or the way Renault were? ;)

Anyway , the rumours surrounding Genii GP are getting funnier. :D

First - nearly out of money - £30 million loss last year. Asking Group Lotus for an advance on their sponsorship
Second - Haven't paid Renaultsport so may be forced to use Cosworth engines next year, while the car is still called a Renault, and sponsored by Lotus and Lada
Now - May be bought back by Renault and the French Government and run as Renault again... :D So next year we could have no Lotus cars on the grid.

Group Lotus and Team Lotus both claimed to have won the court case they had - but only one appealed the result - and that was Group Lotus. Doesn't sound like the actions of a winner. The appeal was tossed out as well.

Team Lotus - From speaking to a couple of people, it sounds more like he will drop the Team Lotus name, but not hand it over to Group. Group had their chance to end all this nearly 2 years ago when Hunt approached them about selling the Team Lotus name. They said no. Then they claimed to own Team Lotus anyway. :confused:

Moving facility. I can see it happening. I can also see them not moving everything to the new site. With the F1 and GP2 teams both set up in Norfolk, wind tunnel construction due to start soon - it's be silly to scrap all that. Especially as the facility they currently have has very good facilities. Get a new facility set up, move the race team actoss and use the Norfolk base as a manufacturing/R&D base would be my idea.

As for Group's future... They don't have one.
I'm now convinced that Group Lotus will be bankrupt in the near future - Lotus product managers *guys behind Elise and Evora for example* have been jumping from Group and joining Caterham recently. Employing a Rapper as Vice President of Design and Marketing *??!*

Dany Bahar has been given an awful lot and so far, has achieved nothing. Sponsoring a lot of other manufactures in motorsports, rolling out several models of cars that won't appear for at least another 2 years, hiring lots of celebs to appear at launches does not a successful car company make. Sorry.. they're no longer car company... Lifestyle company. I mean, check out www.lotusoriginals.com

*snigger* Just checked out Bahar on urban dictionary. :D
 
I don't see the future for Group Lotus as bleak as others do.

The whole Swizz Beatz thing was just copying what others have done. Hewlett Packard with Jay Z, Intel with will.i.am, Victoria Beckham with Range Rover etc..

Its not as daft as might seem.

The demand for the Lotus Evora GT shows just how much strength the brand has.

Just a question of whether or not they have the capital to keep the ball rolling. Would be a terrible shame if they went bankrupt before at least giving it a proper try.
 
JRS said:
Mostly because Genii-LOLtus-Renault is the same team (with a lick of paint and a name change) that rigged the result of the Singapore GP not so very long ago, and Team Lotus is a plucky outfit toiling away towards the rear of the field setting themselves up for a big vault up the grid.
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Which makes the Fernandes/Gascoyne lot a more likeable team, but it still doesn't give them any more right to the Lotus name. I guess I should have clarified that by "better", I meant more deserving of the name.

Team Lotus will most likely still be in it, even if they aren't called Team Lotus, so for the sake of this whole silly saga, the sooner someone climbs down the better.
 
Weebull said:
...but it still doesn't give them any more right to the Lotus name.
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I dont get this argument. The own the name 'Team Lotus', they have every right to use it. Just because you dont think they are the 'real' Team Lotus has no bearing on their rights to use the name. Plenty of organisation and company names change hands, but it doesn't mean they somehow loose the right to a name because its no longer with its original owner.

Team Lotus have every right to use the Team Lotus name, Group Lotus have no rights to it at all. Its as simple as that.
 
Skeeter said:
I dont get this argument. The own the name 'Team Lotus', they have every right to use it. Just because you dont think they are the 'real' Team Lotus has no bearing on their rights to use the name. Plenty of organisation and company names change hands, but it doesn't mean they somehow loose the right to a name because its no longer with its original owner.

Team Lotus have every right to use the Team Lotus name, Group Lotus have no rights to it at all. Its as simple as that.
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+1 whether people like it or not Fernandes paid good money to license the Team Lotus name and is well within his rights to do so.
 
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