After months and months of wrangling over the Lotus name in F1, it appears it may be all for nought! http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90907 http://www.racer.com/team-lotus-linked-to-caterham-tie-up/article/201129/ Depending on the which report you believe, it appears Team Lotus/Tony Fernandes is buying out the Caterham road car company. This raises a number of questions.. 1. Is Fernandes looking for a 'Plan B' should his outfit lose the Lotus naming dispute? Team Caterham anyone? 2. Caterham bought the design and manufacturing rights of the Lotus Type 7 (now just known as 'the Seven') in 1973. A car they still sell in its hundreds today. So could this actually be a way of leveraging the Team Lotus brand, assuming Fernandes wins the trial, in order to see a return on his investment? 3. Has Fernandes made the purchase in light of both the above scenarios playing out, thereby giving him options regardless of whether he wins or loses the Lotus naming dispute? The mind boggles at the endless possibilities! Thoughts everyone?
In order to pacify me they should give me a Caterham 7. I would accept it in the right spirit and wish them well.
Tony Fernandes has made it very clear in the past that he wants his team to have an iconic name, and the links to Caterham all make sense. I think it's number two out of those you have mentioned above, because of comments Fernandes has made previously. Whatever the announcement will be, you can be sure Group Lotus won't be happy about it.
Caterham-Lotus? Team Lotus-Caterham? Maybe as suggested Caterham F1 is probably the best shout, but I'd be surprised if Caterham have the money/resources to run a successful F1 team.
But Team Lotus and Caterham might. Its Tony Fernandes bying them so it doesn't really matter how much money they have. Besides its all about having a brand conected to them, either as a somewhat legitimate link to lotus or as something new to call the team.
Great article Biffo! There is plenty of room for thought on this and I think one of your proposals is probably correct.
Back to the subject of the thread, I think it is likely that they are going to announce the takeover of Caterham, which will give certain 'options' on their branding. - Very clever.
Well, I really do hope Fernandes gets something out of this if only down to his work ethic, his legal team obviously didn't do enough homework on the Team Lotus name and were a tad naive to actually believe he could pull that one off, given the legal tangles, however full marks for trying. And 10/10 for creating his F1 team whatever they may eventually be known as, Caterham Air Asia, Yea, sounds good to me. Anyway its only a bloody name, its results that will do the talking !
Ok Ive just heard: Team Lotus will tomorrow announce they will be renamed as Sonangol Caterham F1! The company that created the web domain teamlotus.co.uk have just set up sonangolcaterham.com, sonangolcaterhamF1.com and Sonangolcaterhamteamlotus.com. The Sonangol Group will be announced as Teams major sponsor. Just looking them up they deal in management of oil and gas in Angola. This will all be officially anounced Tomorrow at Duxford, Cambridgeshire Edit: I mean Today
You will have to ask Mr Fernandes. As I didnt agree with the 'stealing' of the Team Lotus name this seems more suited. They have bought a company with heritage 'Caterham' and are now launching them into F1. I wonder if they will stay british racing green
The High Court has ruled that they can continue to call themselves Team Lotus, so no Caterham team in F1.
