Caterham targets midfield

The Caterham are optimistic that the updates they are bringing to the up-coming race in Valencia this weekend, as well as some for the British Grand Prix, can move them up the ladder and finish in the mid-field.

In their first year, as Lotus Racing, the team was optimistic that they could beat the other new teams, Virgin and HRT. And they did. Then last year team principal Tony Fernandes said that the team were targeting points, but the results failed to materialize. And with the announcement that they are hoping for finishes in the mid-field, one could suggest that the Caterham team is overly optimistic.

To do that, the team not only have to overtake Toro Rosso on the standing, they have 6 points now, but also Force India with 28 points and the Williams team with 44, which scored their first victory in eight years, when Pastor Maldonado took the chequered flag in Spain. So, it looks like a tall order, but technical director Mark Smith believes that they now understand enough of the car´s performance and race of development is enough to give their drivers the push they need.

“We expect to be much closer to the cars ahead than we were last year, giving us a chance perhaps to put one of our cars into Q2 and giving the drivers a real chance to race on Sunday,” explained Smith.

“We have a couple of quite significant updates coming in Valencia and Silverstone – we will take a look at a number of new aerodynamic elements in Valencia as well as some minor modifications to the floor, and even though we will not know exactly what they will give us until we get out on track, we are cautiously optimistic they will help us keep edging ever closer to the midfield.”

The updates include revisions of the floor and several other aerodynamic changes, and while Mark Smith might be a tad to optimistic, Tony Fernandes is a little more careful.

“While we are honest enough with ourselves to know that these upgrades alone will not be enough to force our way into the midfield pack, we do know it is a statement of our intent to join the group just ahead that we are updating the car at the same rate or even more quickly than our rivals,” Fernandes said.

“We have the people and resources in place to achieve our goal of scoring a point this year, and we are edging ever closer to a group of cars that is now tantalisingly close.”

 

 

Lotus boss sacked

Dany Bahar, the CEO of Group Lotus, has been suspended by the new owners of the parent company, DRB-Hicom.

Bahar was deeply involved in the controversy concerning the two Lotus teams, beginning in 2010, when Lotus Racing was racing in F1. That team later became Caterham, but Group Lotus had a deal with Tony Fernandes, the team principal of Caterham, to use the Lotus branding. Fernandes wanted to use the Team Lotus name and logo for 2011, but Proton, the previous owners of Group Lotus, said no. A court case decided that Fernandes could use the Team Lotus roundel and the name, but not ‘Lotus’ on its own. Read more on that here.

Today the announcement came, that Dany Bahar has been suspended from his post,  “while an investigation is carried out into a complaint about his conduct.”

A statement from Group Lotus read:

“As a result of a number of media inquiries, Group Lotus plc (“Lotus”) can today confirm that, following an operational review, chief executive Dany Bahar has been temporarily suspended from his role to facilitate an investigation into a complaint about his conduct made by Lotus’ penultimate parent company, DRB-HICOM Berhad.”

“The penultimate holding company would like to stress it is business as usual at Lotus. We fully support the company and will continue to support Lotus in its business endeavours and development.”

Spanish Grand Prix preview – Caterham

Looking at the performance of the Caterham team from the first four races, the team has taken a small step backwards and are still chasing their first points. According to team principal Tony Fernandes, the results are looking ‘encouraging’ but admits that there is still a lot of work to be done.

“We head back to Europe after what has been an encouraging first four races for the team,” said Fernandes. “We may not have quite bridged the gap to the midfield pack yet, but we are clearly much closer than we were this time last year, particularly on race day when we have seen clear evidence of the progress we have made.

“Having been with us for four races now, I am very pleased with the job Vitaly has been doing for the team. He is obviously a fighter and he is pushing his team mate well, especially on Sundays, and that is good for the whole team. I think Heikki is due a run of better luck in the races as he has been pushing extremely hard in qualifying, particularly to get himself into Q2 in Bahrain, but he has not had the same luck when the lights go out on race day. Hopefully that will change in Barcelona and we will be able to see both cars fighting to the chequered flag on Sunday.”

Heikki Kovalainen:

“Barcelona’s a good circuit where the main challenge is to nail everything absolutely perfectly. If you make a half a tenth of a mistake it can cost you a grid position and it’s a race weekend where you have to focus on the details to give yourself the best chance of success. It’s a track with a lot of high-speed corners, some where you have to be really on it to save time, and you have to be pretty committed going into the braking zone in T1 as that’s where there is an overtaking chance. For the fans it’s often a pretty quiet race because it’s a tough circuit to overtake on, but that makes qualifying even more crucial and means you have to get the plan on Saturday absolutely right.”

Last year Vitaly Petrov placed his Renault in 6th place for the race, in which he ended just outside the points in 11th. And this year, it will be harder to get into the points, he admits.

“After a good test in Mugello we are all looking forward to getting back to racing in Spain. Barcelona is a track I know well and one I like racing on. I was on the podium there in GP2 in 2009 and while I know that’s out of reach for us at the moment, we will all be focusing on continuing to take the fight to the cars ahead and repeating the sort of performances we’ve put in so far this season, particularly on Sundays.”

 

Group Lotus responds to rumours

As I said a few days ago, the Lotus F1 team is no longer sponsored by the car company by the same name. However, Proton, the owners of Group Lotus, has issued a loan of £30m, under the condition that the team itself has been put up as collateral. If the loan is not repaid in time, Proton will take over the team.

A statement reads:

“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’s 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 percent 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 percent of the F1 team. Another 10 percent share option will be activated if the team default on their loan obligations with Proton.”

At the same time, you could read a longer and rather bizarre statement from the team itself, dishing out un-disguised content for several people, including Tony Fernandes, Joe Saward and others. The statement is here in its entirety:

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.”

Lotus drops F1

Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean are no longer driving for Lotus.

The title sponsorship between the car manufacturer Group Lotus and theF1 team Lotus F1, have been terminated, said chairman of Lotus F1 Team, Gerard Lopez. Raikkonen and Grosjean are still driving for Lotus F1 Team, owned by Genii Capital, but this only represents the Lotus name, and nothing more.

Say what? Yes, it is all very confusing. remember back in 2010 when he heard that Lotus Racing would be back? But that they would be called Team Lotus from 2011, but that failed becaise Group Lotus told Team Lotus that they dodn´t want that, so they went to court and Team Lotus said they won over Group LOtus, but Group Lotus said they beat Team Lotus? So just to re-kindle some of the ‘magic’ we all love so well in the tragic which is Lotus vs Lotus, here are some highlights:

Genii Capital bought a majority stake in Renault F1 Team back in 2009. The idea was to bring renault back to their old winning ways. Renault kept 25% of the shares, but in 2010 sold their lot to Genii Capital. Group Lotus became title sponsor, backed by Proton, a deal which meant that Group Lotus(those are the guys with Dany bahar, Eric Lux and Gerard Lopez, not to be confused with Tony Fernandes´ Team Lotus, wcich is now called Caterham) became a huge partner in Lotus Renault GP, and remain as title sponsor until the end of 2017.

So for 2012 Lotus Renault GP now changed their name to Lotus F1 Team, an agreement made between Fernandes and Bahar. However, two months ago Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary´s DRB-Hicom bought the government-owned Proton, remember they own Group Lotus, for $400m, and whilst carrying out the post-acquisition due dulligence, froze the assets of the business, including Lotus.

Proton has been in deep financial distress for years, losing money mainly due to Group Lotus, which hasn´t made money since the mid-90´s. In January of this ywar, Lopez said that Genii Capital was committed to Lotus F1 Team and in february he said that the company might be interested in buying Group Lotus, “provided they believed there is something good that can be done by acquiring the company”.

It looks like there might have been some sort of exchange of words between Lopez and Bahar, resulting in a failure to deliver the money need for the title sponsorship, and as such Genii Capital can rightly terminate the agreement due to a breached contract.

There is no way the otehr teams will accept another name change this fast, expecially since the last disoute went to court, with both sides claiming a win. And remember back to 2010, when Fernandes said that the Lotus name was back in F1? Now it seems that from 2013, the Lotus name are once more gone.

Genii Capital might be looking to buy Group Lotus, but don´t expect Tony Fernandes to fork out the cash needed to re-purchase the Lotus name, a right he gave away the second he changed his team to Caterham. As Steve Davies, of Skiddmark, writes:

“Lotus 5-year ‘New Era’ Business Plan was never viable [...] – not in the real world. For a business that hasn’t turned a profit in 15 years, whose plan depended on £360 million in funding from Asian investors (£120 million from Proton) and needs to generate £110 million (extra) from sales of its own cars, success was always based upon ‘the most optimistic’ of scenarios.”

 

Caterham confirms move to Leafield

The Caterham team has confirmed reports that they are indeed moving their headquarters from Hingham to Leafield.

Caterham, or the team formerly known as Team Lotus, have had their headquarters in Hingham, Norfolk since the start of the team in 2010, but from this August the team will be based in Leafield, Oxfordshire, the place where Arrows and later Super Aguri were based. Both the F1 and the GP2 teams will be under the same roof, along with the Caterham car company, a logical move, says Tony Fernandes.

“It became clear that we needed to house the car company in the same facility as our racing operations, to give us the best chance to meet our future goals on and off track,” said Fernandes.

Lotus and Renault extends deal

Team Lotus team principal Tony Fernandes confirmed in Singapore that Renault will continue to supply the team with engines at least until the end of 2013.

A new engine formula will be implemented for 2014, but up until that day, the V8 roams free in the F1 world. And now Team Lotus, soon to be called Caterham Airasia by all indications, have extended their current deal with Renault, so that they will work closely together until the end of 2013. The deal also includes a tenchical development deal, so Renault Sport and Red Bull Technology will supply the team with KERS.

“Having established an incredibly good working partnership since the first days of our agreement we are absolutely delighted that Renault Sport F1 and Red Bull Technology will be playing such an integral role in the ongoing development of our team until at least 2013, and then we are aiming to keep working together when the new rules are introduced,” said Fernandes in a statement in Singapore.

“They are both passionate, dedicated teams of people with whom we have a growing relationship that is creating a number of exciting opportunities for us for the future. They share our vision for where we want to take our team, and we are very proud to have their power pushing us forward.

“Not only will we be able to build on everything we have learnt through working with Renault and Red Bull Technology in 2011, but we will now have the added benefit of KERS for next year, which really is a major step forward for our team.

“We have done the very best job we can this year but without that extra power we are always competing on a different level to the teams ahead, so to give our drivers that boost is a key element of helping us catch the cars ahead, and compete with them when we do so.”

And Jean-François Caubet, the MD of Renault Sport, added: “This year we have established solid foundations with Team Lotus and this latest agreement consolidates the relationship that we look forward to continuing for many seasons to come. Renault is in F1 to display the quality of its product, so we need to be associated with teams that clearly have potential.

“The steps Team Lotus has made on and off track with its technical structure and facilities have given us a confidence they will achieve their aims. KERS is now an essential part to a competitive performance in F1 today and we hope this supply will help the team continue its evolution.

“Furthermore a wider experience of using the KERS system at this point in time will help in the development of the powerful energy recovery systems that will be introduced under the future engine regulations.”

Team Lotus partners with GE

Team Lotus today announced GE as a new major sponsor and technical partner. From the British Grand Prix and onwards, the GE branding will be visible on everything from the teams cars, headquarter and factory.

Team principal Tony Fernandes were very pleased with the announcement today.

“On behalf of the whole team I am very proud to welcome GE into the Team Lotus family. It is a resounding endorsement of the remarkable development of our team that we have unveiled a partnership of this significance with one of the world’s most eminent organisations.

We are already exploring a number of initiatives that will bring the GE / Team Lotus relationship to life across the spectrum of GE’s interests, from future automotive electrification technologies, materials sciences, design processes and core engineering competencies to the showcasing of GE’s world class e-infrastructure capabilities throughout the global business and government communities in race and non-race markets alike. In short, we have a huge array of platforms to work across driven by passionate people in both organisations who can’t wait to put their collective imagination to work.”

GE, or General Electric, is an American-based, multi-national conglomerate and was originally formed as a merger between Thomas Edison´s Edison Electric and Thompson-Houston Electric Company in 1892. It went public in 1896 and was one of 12 original companies to form the DOW-index. GE is dedicated to innovation in energy, health, transportation and infrastructure,and the 2010 total revenue reached $157 bn.