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Formula 1
COOPER: Season Of Possibilities For ‘Lotus’
The 2012 F1 season could be a big one for the newly re-branded Lotus team both on and off the track...
The Lotus E20 was strong in winter testing. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
The F1 world is gathering in sunny Melbourne, and anticipation is building ahead of what should be an exciting weekend.
While there obviously exists the possibility that over the next few days we discover that the Red Bull RB8 is a second a lap faster than everyone else, the consensus is that this everything is a lot closer than in 2011, and predicting the outcome is far from easy.
All we really know is that Red Bull and McLaren look good, Mercedes and Lotus have some momentum and could join the party, and Ferrari has more work to do than the rest.
Much intrigue surrounds the Lotus team, which lest we forget won the World Championship just six years ago under its former Renault name. Will Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean really be contenders? Last year the team managed to pick up a couple of third places in the opening races with a car that ultimately proved to be very disappointing, so anything is possible.
The decision to hire Kimi was an inspired one, and the Finn has helped to raise everyone’s expectations. The team has seemingly even overcome the dreadful blow of missing the entire first Barcelona test after experiencing a chassis problem. The car was fast at Jerez, and then crucially fast at the second Barcelona test, although the lost mileage in between obviously hasn’t helped. Nevertheless, the team is clearly in pretty good shape.
“It’s very positive,” team owner and Genii Group boss Gerard Lopez told SPEED.com. “It’s not just a buzz, everything seems nice and collected, the car seems good. Kimi’s obviously in very good shape and right there. It’s really funny because he’s not the person most known for PR, but he does attract a lot of people and a lot of attention!
“I’ve said this before: I was quite surprised by the pick-up we got, but the one thing that is important to us is the fact that he was on the pace right away. It was not surprising, but it was satisfying.
“I think it is going to be an exciting season. Obviously, it’s early days, so we really don’t know where everybody stacks up. I can only say as far as we’re concerned, we’re doing OK. As far as having six World Champions is concerned, it’s part of the excitement.
“The rule changes have meant some people have had to re-invent quite a lot – we had to re-invent because of our decisions last year to run the sidepipes. We obviously went quite far last year and quite far again this year the other way. I believe it’s going to be a very exciting season – probably closer racing at the front than the year before.”
We are, of course, in the unusual situation of having a Lotus team that is completely different to the one that carried the name for the last two years. You could debate all night on the merits of whether the current Caterham team or the former Toleman/Benetton/Renault team has a better claim on the name, or perhaps more importantly the support of fans of the marque.
At least Tony Fernandes chose a base in Norfolk, close to the spiritual home of Colin Chapman’s company, and it was a start-up and not a rebranding exercise. In its Toleman and Benetton days, the organization that now bears the Lotus name competed against the real Team Lotus from 1981 until 1994.
In a nice touch, Lopez and his colleagues acknowledged their team’s own past by calling the car the E20, as the 20th to be produced in the Enstone factory, rather than giving it a Lotus type number or claiming, as so many others have done, that they are now a “new team.”
The relationship with Group Lotus remains intriguing, however. Last year the road car company was a sponsor, and it was on that basis that the team was known as Lotus Renault GP or LRGP, although the car officially remained a Renault. Outsiders wondered how Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar could justify such a large expenditure when he had so many other racing and road car projects to fund.
What hasn’t been widely appreciated yet is that having won the rights to use the Lotus name in F1, Genii and the team no longer have sponsorship from Group Lotus, when we were originally told that it would be an ongoing deal.
“We have an agreement today for the name, and as far as the sponsorship agreement is concerned, that has been cleared,” says Lopez. “We are essentially in a situation where they don’t owe us anything anymore. They’re not title sponsor, they are a name provider, they are a partner. We are working with them on a number of things. Honestly, it’s a win/win situation because it clarified a lot of things.”
But wasn’t the whole point of the name change the fact that Group Lotus would continue to pump in funds?
“No, they don’t have to," says Lopez. "They were the title sponsor, and it’s actually been solved in a completely different way. They have and they don’t have to anymore, they’ve done what they have to do, to be very precise.”
The bottom line is that the current Lotus F1 team is in a very similar situation to the Fernandes-era Lotus. It has acquired an attractive brand name which will help it to gain credibility and sell sponsorship, but is getting no financial support – and is thus promoting the Lotus road car division for free.
“That’s essentially it, yeah,” said a smiling Lopez.
The flipside of all this are the suggestions that Genii wants take over Group Lotus and reunite the names. Lopez won’t deny that it could happen one day, but he insists that it is not on the immediate agenda.
“I think somebody asked if there was something to be done with Group Lotus, would we be interested? I said yes, this is called Lotus. But the fact is there is nothing for now, because there is a takeover happening in Malaysia. Those people have bought Proton, as well as Lotus, so they must have plans for it. If the question is, ‘Are we doing anything to take over Group Lotus?’ the answer is clearly no.
“Honestly, that was just a story. If you come to us and say that there’s a company that has a good brand name, can be built up and so on, we would obviously always be interested in do something. But that’s it.”
One interesting angle that emerged a few weeks ago was the suggestion that Bahar was trying to put his own deal together and that he might end up in a fight for Group Lotus with Genii. Lopez plays down that possibility.
“If we were doing anything, and we’ve got to say this quote unquote because we’re doing nothing, then we would certainly be supporting the existing management team that’s there, just because we think they are really good guys. I think the value today is the brand and the fact that they’ve really been able to wake it up, and they have really good people. We’d never consider something like that, against the management.”
Whatever the ins and outs of the commercial side, the fact is that the team clearly has some upward momentum on the track, and that can only be a good thing for the sport.
Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
While there obviously exists the possibility that over the next few days we discover that the Red Bull RB8 is a second a lap faster than everyone else, the consensus is that this everything is a lot closer than in 2011, and predicting the outcome is far from easy.
All we really know is that Red Bull and McLaren look good, Mercedes and Lotus have some momentum and could join the party, and Ferrari has more work to do than the rest.
Much intrigue surrounds the Lotus team, which lest we forget won the World Championship just six years ago under its former Renault name. Will Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean really be contenders? Last year the team managed to pick up a couple of third places in the opening races with a car that ultimately proved to be very disappointing, so anything is possible.
The decision to hire Kimi was an inspired one, and the Finn has helped to raise everyone’s expectations. The team has seemingly even overcome the dreadful blow of missing the entire first Barcelona test after experiencing a chassis problem. The car was fast at Jerez, and then crucially fast at the second Barcelona test, although the lost mileage in between obviously hasn’t helped. Nevertheless, the team is clearly in pretty good shape.
“It’s very positive,” team owner and Genii Group boss Gerard Lopez told SPEED.com. “It’s not just a buzz, everything seems nice and collected, the car seems good. Kimi’s obviously in very good shape and right there. It’s really funny because he’s not the person most known for PR, but he does attract a lot of people and a lot of attention!
“I’ve said this before: I was quite surprised by the pick-up we got, but the one thing that is important to us is the fact that he was on the pace right away. It was not surprising, but it was satisfying.
“I think it is going to be an exciting season. Obviously, it’s early days, so we really don’t know where everybody stacks up. I can only say as far as we’re concerned, we’re doing OK. As far as having six World Champions is concerned, it’s part of the excitement.
“The rule changes have meant some people have had to re-invent quite a lot – we had to re-invent because of our decisions last year to run the sidepipes. We obviously went quite far last year and quite far again this year the other way. I believe it’s going to be a very exciting season – probably closer racing at the front than the year before.”
We are, of course, in the unusual situation of having a Lotus team that is completely different to the one that carried the name for the last two years. You could debate all night on the merits of whether the current Caterham team or the former Toleman/Benetton/Renault team has a better claim on the name, or perhaps more importantly the support of fans of the marque.
At least Tony Fernandes chose a base in Norfolk, close to the spiritual home of Colin Chapman’s company, and it was a start-up and not a rebranding exercise. In its Toleman and Benetton days, the organization that now bears the Lotus name competed against the real Team Lotus from 1981 until 1994.
In a nice touch, Lopez and his colleagues acknowledged their team’s own past by calling the car the E20, as the 20th to be produced in the Enstone factory, rather than giving it a Lotus type number or claiming, as so many others have done, that they are now a “new team.”
The relationship with Group Lotus remains intriguing, however. Last year the road car company was a sponsor, and it was on that basis that the team was known as Lotus Renault GP or LRGP, although the car officially remained a Renault. Outsiders wondered how Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar could justify such a large expenditure when he had so many other racing and road car projects to fund.
What hasn’t been widely appreciated yet is that having won the rights to use the Lotus name in F1, Genii and the team no longer have sponsorship from Group Lotus, when we were originally told that it would be an ongoing deal.
“We have an agreement today for the name, and as far as the sponsorship agreement is concerned, that has been cleared,” says Lopez. “We are essentially in a situation where they don’t owe us anything anymore. They’re not title sponsor, they are a name provider, they are a partner. We are working with them on a number of things. Honestly, it’s a win/win situation because it clarified a lot of things.”
But wasn’t the whole point of the name change the fact that Group Lotus would continue to pump in funds?
“No, they don’t have to," says Lopez. "They were the title sponsor, and it’s actually been solved in a completely different way. They have and they don’t have to anymore, they’ve done what they have to do, to be very precise.”
The bottom line is that the current Lotus F1 team is in a very similar situation to the Fernandes-era Lotus. It has acquired an attractive brand name which will help it to gain credibility and sell sponsorship, but is getting no financial support – and is thus promoting the Lotus road car division for free.
“That’s essentially it, yeah,” said a smiling Lopez.
The flipside of all this are the suggestions that Genii wants take over Group Lotus and reunite the names. Lopez won’t deny that it could happen one day, but he insists that it is not on the immediate agenda.
“I think somebody asked if there was something to be done with Group Lotus, would we be interested? I said yes, this is called Lotus. But the fact is there is nothing for now, because there is a takeover happening in Malaysia. Those people have bought Proton, as well as Lotus, so they must have plans for it. If the question is, ‘Are we doing anything to take over Group Lotus?’ the answer is clearly no.
“Honestly, that was just a story. If you come to us and say that there’s a company that has a good brand name, can be built up and so on, we would obviously always be interested in do something. But that’s it.”
One interesting angle that emerged a few weeks ago was the suggestion that Bahar was trying to put his own deal together and that he might end up in a fight for Group Lotus with Genii. Lopez plays down that possibility.
“If we were doing anything, and we’ve got to say this quote unquote because we’re doing nothing, then we would certainly be supporting the existing management team that’s there, just because we think they are really good guys. I think the value today is the brand and the fact that they’ve really been able to wake it up, and they have really good people. We’d never consider something like that, against the management.”
Whatever the ins and outs of the commercial side, the fact is that the team clearly has some upward momentum on the track, and that can only be a good thing for the sport.
Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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