Busy Times For Lotus

[Phoenixent]

Without some sort of outside finance, I doubt Judd will continue. Will IndyCar pick up the tab to get through the season?

ICS will most likely pick up the tab for Honda and Chevy to supply the ex-Lotus teams by Indy...

[Jag_Warrior]

Does anyone have a real idea of how the engine lease contracts are structured? By that I mean, are the lease payments made on a monthly basis in arrears, up front... or in total at the beginning of the season? I assume it would be a monthly or quarterly deal, but I really don't know that.

Proton/Lotus is not entering bankruptcy. So I'm assuming that whatever contractual agreements that Proton/Lotus has already entered into must (legally) be fulfilled. There may be no further development. But unless there is an "out clause" (related to a sale or new ownership of the parent company or the Lotus division), I would think the Lotus teams will continue to have engines through the 2012 season... just not very good ones. But in light of the poor start that Lotus got off to (and the type of over ambitious, shoe string operation Lotus was to begin with), any ICS team that signed on with them should have known that up front.

The F1 teams that went with (the "new") Cosworth found themselves in roughly the same boat. It's a real shame how once storied marques and brands get bought up by bean counters and then get tarnished.

[Phoenixent]

Do either have the capacity to add that many motors that quickly, no matter who pays?

I believe from when Sarah Fisher was looking for a motor that both Chevy and Honda stated after Indy she could get one from them. But then Rahal delayed his second car so Sarah could have that motor. So extra Honda's and Chevy's are coming on line it's just by when. Extra money would pay for the expedite of material orders and overtime to build them. If the money is there Honda and Ilmor can deliver them.

[JC_Berger]

Does anyone have a real idea of how the engine lease contracts are structured? By that I mean, are the lease payments made on a monthly basis in arrears, up front... or in total at the beginning of the season? I assume it would be a monthly or quarterly deal, but I really don't know that.

I interned for one of the races this year, and from what I understand, the teams get 5 or 6 engines per season (somewhere around $325,000 a piece) and I think they typically get a new one after they have put somewhere around 1,500 on it.

That being said, I think the engines are in such short supply that, at least for this year, things will be on a much more case-by-case basis.


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Wise words.

[nigelred5]

With all of the overinflated motorsport related plans that Lotus was rolling out, I was expecting Joe Heitzler and Kevin Kalkhoven to pop out of a cake at any moment.

Well after being a so called 4 car " factory" team for Lotus last year, clearly Kalkoven knew to walk away from Lotus. IIRC the rumor was Lotus still owed KV racing quite a large bit from last year's budget.

[Malbec]

This is my first post I think on here but I remember reading a fascinating interview with Dany Bahar and his Lotus Motorsports chief in motorsport magazine.

In it they were asked about their Indy contract (interview was from midway through last year after the engine supply had been announced but before any teams had signed). Bahar said that he'd gone over to look at Indy racing, checked out Honda and Chevy, took a look at the figures and decided it wouldn't be worthwhile for Lotus to get in there. So far so sensible. Then he returned to the UK and on the spur of the moment decided that actually Lotus should get involved in Indy. I was surprised the journalist didn't press him on this, why would Lotus get involved if their own calculations demonstrated it wasn't worth their while? I suspect though that Bahar does interviews very much on his terms and the matter was left at that point.

It does raise questions about the decision making process at Lotus and it explains how they got themselves into the mess they are in.

In support of Proton though, earlier in this thread it has been suggested that this investment drive was their idea. It wasn't. They were looking to get rid of Lotus when Bahar turned up with promises of having secured $700 million from his business partners that he would inject into the car company. This money never turned up and having already spent several hundred million, Proton were faced with two choices, abandoning everything and writing off the debts they'd already made or raising the money themselves. They chose the latter. In effect they are as much victims of Bahar as anyone else screwed over by Lotus recently.

[Hoop-98]

From Lotus:

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….

Take a little look at what we found online. Don’t you think it’s funny? We do. We had a good old giggle. After all, we love a bit of self irony, just as well really. Although it’s funny, this one’s not accurate but then again, why let the facts get in the way of a good story? The inconvenient truth is – surprise, surprise – we have never said that there are no problems at Lotus.

So whilst lots of people obviously feel the need to comment on Lotus’ current situation in the absence of proper facts or evidence, we can’t ignore these particular mistruths any longer even if we would like to, so we have decided to turn a negative into a positive and use this hilarious piece of ‘art’ to set the record straight regarding the status quo at Group Lotus and try to return a little stability to a fast changing situation.

False rumour #1: Dany Bahar is no longer CEO of Group Lotus.
Fact: Rubbish – Dany Bahar still is.

False rumour #2: Dato’ Sri Syed is no longer Managing Director of Proton.
Fact: Again rubbish. He still is.

You can thank good old Tony Fernandes for these two. Don’t take everything he tweets too seriously – perhaps he’s still frustrated about owning Caterham instead of Lotus and the fact that he fights HRT and Marussia instead of Mercedes and Ferrari in F1.

And whilst we’re on the subject of jokes - do you know the latest F1 joke? Mike Gascoyne, Caterham Group’s Chief Technical Officer, has gone missing. Why? He’s looking for the 30 to 40 points he predicted for the last F1 season. Funny.

Speaking of F1: It seems that one special so called ‘independent’ source is at the root of the lion’s share of damaging rumours and misleading stories. The delightful Joe Saward which leads us nicely to….

False rumour #3: Joe Saward is JUST an independent journalist.
Fact: He is an active Director for the Caterham Group.

And unlike some, we don’t want to get too personal, so we’ll leave it to you to judge how ‘independent’ his stories about Lotus are.

False rumour #4: Group Lotus is no longer involved in F1.
Fact: Lotus F1 Team and Group Lotus have reshaped their commercial relationship earlier this year. The new governance agreement signifies the continued commitment of Group Lotus to the team and the sport.

Group Lotus’ branding and marketing rights and subsequent activities remain unaffected by the new agreement until at least 2017. Alongside continued branding and title partnership status, Group Lotus is also the exclusive master licensee for all Lotus F1 Team merchandise.

The new agreement was reached following Group Lotus owners Proton providing team owners Genii with a £30m loan which is repayable within three years. In order to secure the loan Genii used 100% of the F1 team’s assets as collateral meaning that under the conditions of the loan agreement Proton have been given full title guarantee to all plant, machinery, show cars, computers, office and the Lotus F1 Team headquarters.

In addition Proton retains the rights to purchase 10% of the F1 team. Another 10% share option will be activated if the team default on their loan obligations with Proton.

Again we leave it to your judgement how ‘bad’ Lotus’ current situation in F1 is. And speaking of bad situations…..


False rumour #5: Group Lotus is going into administration.
Fact: Rubbish. The takeover of our parent company Proton by DRB-HICOM couldn’t have come at a worse time, but up until that point Proton was (and still remains) fully committed to our five year business plan to create jobs and to expand the factory and business. With the takeover process the funding has been restricted and DRB-HICOM is taking time to understand what to do with the business. DRB-HICOM is currently in the middle of due diligence of Group Lotus and there have been and continue to be positive discussions between Group Lotus senior management and senior management at DRB-HICOM both here in Hethel and in Malaysia. At no point has DRB-HICOM indicated to Group Lotus that it intends to put the company into administration. The over-active rumour mill is seriously damaging our business reputation, image and credibility but it is what it is.

The simple fact is, and we haven’t denied this - Lotus is going through a very difficult phase at the moment but we are showing true fighting spirit every day in trying to keep this vision alive. This is also a fact – no matter what people outside of Lotus may say or tweet or blog.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Lotus has been a joke in Indycar racing so far. If not for the herculean talents of Sebastien Bourdais, no Lotus car would even be considered close to competitive. The spin from these people is the spin of a company that is in over their heads. Their collective sucking is across the racing world, not just in Indycar.

PR spin....the bs that feeds the trolls!!!!

[luke]

...try to find me an Indianapolis ANYWHERE else in this world, I make you bet you can't!...

Sorry, I just couldn't resist, this from wikipedia:

Places in the United States:
Indianapolis, Iowa, in Mahaska County, roughly between Iowa City and Des Moines
Indianapolis, Oklahoma, in Custer County

[anthonyvop]

More tough news about Lotus in IndyCar

INDYCAR: Tough Decisions Pending By The Series, Lotus, Its Teams