A serious legal battle is developing around the ownership of the name “Team Lotus”. Claudio Berro, the motorsport directors of Lotus Cars, provides web site 422race.com with some details about it.
Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes created a Formula 1 team a little more than a year ago and named it “Lotus Racing”. That team competed in the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship. In September, Fernandes apparently lost this license and then announced that he had acquired the name “Team Lotus” from David Hunt.
With Lotus Motorsport moving into racing next year with the GP2 team ART, it has withdrawn the license from Fernandes, who has instead bought the separate Team Lotus name from 1976 World Champion James Hunt's brother David who owned the rights since the death of founder Colin Chapman.
"I, as Lotus Motorsport director, have the opinion of the constructor," said Berro to 422race.com.
"The situation is very clear, press releases which explained the situation have been released. Lotus Cars gave a license to this team (Fernandes) to use the name, and this license has been taken back. The team on his own decided to look for a name, which somebody thinks he has the right to use and bought it. Whether this right exists or not will be decided by the competent authorities. Lotus Cars is the company that builds cars, both racing and road cars," Berro added.
Berro also talked about the possibility of Lotus Cars entering Formula 1: "This is not our decision at the moment, as I said, because F1 requires enormous investments," Berro said.
"We are investing so much on our new products and models, so, to sustain all these activities, you also need to have economic resources. Even if they were trying to lower costs, F1 would be still expensive. I think that, if Lotus is to go into F1, they have to do it at the top and competing with the best teams, unlike this year," Berro explained
"Honestly I haven’t examined the new technical regulations so far because, as I said, F1 is out of our plans. We are trying to have a good year in 2011. Then if Formula One is accessible and the right conditions are present, we would see. But the decision depends not on me, but on the shareholders and the board," Berro concluded.
Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes created a Formula 1 team a little more than a year ago and named it “Lotus Racing”. That team competed in the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship. In September, Fernandes apparently lost this license and then announced that he had acquired the name “Team Lotus” from David Hunt.
With Lotus Motorsport moving into racing next year with the GP2 team ART, it has withdrawn the license from Fernandes, who has instead bought the separate Team Lotus name from 1976 World Champion James Hunt's brother David who owned the rights since the death of founder Colin Chapman.
"I, as Lotus Motorsport director, have the opinion of the constructor," said Berro to 422race.com.
"The situation is very clear, press releases which explained the situation have been released. Lotus Cars gave a license to this team (Fernandes) to use the name, and this license has been taken back. The team on his own decided to look for a name, which somebody thinks he has the right to use and bought it. Whether this right exists or not will be decided by the competent authorities. Lotus Cars is the company that builds cars, both racing and road cars," Berro added.
Berro also talked about the possibility of Lotus Cars entering Formula 1: "This is not our decision at the moment, as I said, because F1 requires enormous investments," Berro said.
"We are investing so much on our new products and models, so, to sustain all these activities, you also need to have economic resources. Even if they were trying to lower costs, F1 would be still expensive. I think that, if Lotus is to go into F1, they have to do it at the top and competing with the best teams, unlike this year," Berro explained
"Honestly I haven’t examined the new technical regulations so far because, as I said, F1 is out of our plans. We are trying to have a good year in 2011. Then if Formula One is accessible and the right conditions are present, we would see. But the decision depends not on me, but on the shareholders and the board," Berro concluded.