Caterham's car company and F1 team are still linked. I have no problem with that..Quote:
Originally Posted by wedge
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Caterham's car company and F1 team are still linked. I have no problem with that..Quote:
Originally Posted by wedge
pitpass - Proton stops Lotus F1 sponsorship and gives £35m loan to team
- Variouswebsites are reporting that the Lotus F1team has terminated its sponsorship deal with the Group Lotus carmanufacturer[/*:m:3hcviw4h]
- Justlast week Sylt revealedthat two months ago Proton, the Malaysian-based owner of Group Lotus, hadgiven the LotusF1 team an estimated £35m loan.[/*:m:3hcviw4h]
- What wasn't revealed by Lopez' comments is that the loanincludes a very important clause stating that the team gives Proton "fulltitle guarantee" to "all plant, machinery, show cars, computers,office and other equipment... and... Whiteways Technical Centre [LotusF1's headquarters]." What this means is that if (and there isno suggestion that this will happen) the team fails to repay the loan thenProton will be entitled to take over all the property listed above whicheffectively constitutes the team itself. So although Lopez was keen to say thatGroup Lotus no longer has an option to buy 50% of LotusF1, what wasn't revealed is that Group Lotus'owner could end up owning much more than that as a result of the loan it hasgiven to the team.
[/*:m:3hcviw4h]
I assume that Lotus F1 would not have agreed to those loan terms if team management was not convinced that the money can be returned. The terms seem pretty normal to me. After all, there has to be some kind of collateral for such a large loan. If the team does well this year (e.g. they manage to beat Mercedes) they could count on getting a bigger share of TV royalty payments than the last year. It does seem strange to me that Lotus F1 had to borrow money from its sponsors. And didn't they already owe some money to Renault for the engines? I bet they regret letting Petrov walk away with his sponsors, specially with Grosjean's terrible performance in the first two races.Quote:
Originally Posted by CNR
After so desperate to acquire the Lotus brand Tony Fernandes quickly brought Caterham. Call me cynical but I'm not sure he has brought it for the right reasons.Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
Caterhams are a very, very niche product.
Car companies are in the business of selling cars. Very, very few companies can get away with continuing racing at a high level and continue to successfully sell cars.
There will come a time when the difference will be F1 or selling cars and something will give and it won't be a pretty sight.
I am pretty sure Tony Fernandes bought the Caterham because he thought that "Caterham" is cool team name to be used in F1. I don't think that common sense economics drive his decisions. F1 is his toy project that he will keep sponsoring as long as he stays interested in it.
So in two years we have gone from 0 Lotus to 2 Lotus and back to 0 Lotus. :s pin: I remember Dany Bahar decided to fund a mammoth motorsport program. Perhaps it was too much and it's time to cut costs? Actually I'm a bit surprised all this instability surrounding the Enstone team hasn't influenced their competitiveness on race track yet.
While Fernandes is a businessman first he does seem to be a genuine enthusiast for projects he gets involved in, whether that be F1, Caterham or QPR.Quote:
Originally Posted by wedge
What happens to Caterham is yet to be seen but Fernandes appears to be committed to building the company, and the link with F1 can only help that IMHO.
The continuing saga of the Lotus name seems to be something entirely different to me. Genii Capital have no link with the original team, nor the car company, and yet they'd have us believe they are Lotus :dozey:
Why not see it as a compliment to Colin Chapman? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
That is a reasonable point. You mean because he wanted 'the next best thing' to Lotus after he couldn't have that name any more? Still, I do think the use of the Caterham name is more legitimate than the use of Lotus by Genii now is.Quote:
Originally Posted by wedge
I'm not, for exactly the reason that Lotus has nothing to do with the team except as a sponsor!Quote:
Originally Posted by jens
As for Bahar, his plans were clearly absurd.