F1: Group Lotus doesn't own any of Lotus-Renault, says team's Boullier

When it was announced that Group Lotus was to buy a large slice of the Renault F1 racing team, we raised a number of questions and concluded that the only way the story stacked up was if Group Lotus had some kind of long-stop on its investment and the only way that would work was if the deal was for sponsorship not ownership.

The deal, it had been claimed, was for Renault to exit the ownership of the team entirely and to sell its 25% stake and Group Lotus to buy it. But now, Eric Boullier, Renault-F1 Team Principal, says that that is not what happened. In fact, he has told Autosprint, Renault's shares were sold not to Group Lotus but to Genii Capital - which now owns 100% of the team.

Nominate AML Network for a social media award in the Shorty Awards

Group Lotus will be, in effect, technology sponsors: its parent company, Proton, will send 25 engineers to the UK to work within the team and Group Lotus will also undertake some development work on the car. The arrangement with the engineers is very similar to that which Petronas had, for some years, with Sauber when it was a major sponsor there.

Bouillon said that Group Lotus may become a shareholder at a later date.

That's going to go down like a lead balloon in the English High Court next week where Group Lotus is trying to obtain summary judgment to block the use of the name Team Lotus by the team formerly known as Lotus Racing. For Group, the biggest hurdle is that it does not own the rights to the name "Team Lotus." It licensed the name "Lotus" to "Lotus Racing" last year but Dany Bahar decided to cancel the arrangement. From the outside, this appears to have more to do with Bahar's strategy to refocus Group and to use racing as a marketing vehicle and therefore looking for a way to repossess the name than due to any real problems with the deal done before he arrived at Lotus.

In fact, the return of the Lotus name to F1 brought its own (nice to have) problems for Tony Fernandes and his pals: it had an instant fan base who loved the swashbuckling approach the new team had: everything was redolent of the true spirit of Lotus; far away from the corporate and pretentious, suave, approach of Bahar. It may be owned by Malaysians, but the Fernandes team is the epitome of the plucky little English team that relies on its wit and talent instead of simply throwing tons of money at the sport: it's Ferrari v Chapman all over again. Bahar is a Ferrari man and, yes, the word "former" was deliberately omitted from that description. He wants to move Group Lotus to being on a par with, first Porsche and then Ferrari. It's a lofty ideal and one which British car manufacturing desperately needs.

But it does not need petty squabbling over a much loved brand.

During 2010, fans continually pressured Tony Fernandes to get the Team Lotus brand - and the proper Lotus badge on the cars. He at last did a deal with David Hunt who had bought the brand along with other stuff from the liquidators after Team Lotus went bust in 1994. That Hunt controlled the brand has been evident throughout that time: the Chapman family - which owned some F1 cars - had to call their team "Historic Team Lotus."

At the end of 2010, having secured the name Team Lotus, Fernandes announced that it would race in 2011 in the iconic black and gold colour scheme of the Senna / Mansell / Petersen / Andretti years. A competition was launched to design the livery.

Note that it predates the "Team Lotus" name change - and that Proton, which had its name on the 2010 car, is conspicuous by its absence. The Renault name is there because by the time the livery was designed, Lotus Racing had contracted to buy Renault engines for 2011.

Then came the announcement that Group was buying Renault (later watered down and now scotched completely) so he went back to the fans asking them whether they wanted the cars to be the original Team Lotus colours of green and mustard or the more famous black and gold of the JPS years. The fans said to stick with the original; Group Lotus - having said it was buying those Renault shares and renaming the team to Lotus-Renault tried to pre-empt the decision by announcing that they would run in black and gold. Incidentally, they announced that the car they sponsor in US CART racing would run in a variety of liveries during the 2011 including green and mustard, red and gold and black and gold.

Earlier today, Group Lotus announced that it had signed Fairuz Fauzy as reserve driver, a role he performed at Lotus Racing last year. It's no great surprise: his career is tied up with Proton. Fairuz is an excellent driver and a born racer but at 28 years old it's beginning to look as if his chances of a full F1 seat are drifting away. He's been on the fringes for several years but has been reduced to taking drives in lower formulae to keep his hand in, especially after the collapse of A1GP where he was a fixture, at least for a while.

Team Lotus will see that as a betrayal but also as indicative of the pressure being put on them in Malaysia to forego the name. By removing their Malaysian driver - who had run several Friday tests and performed well - some will be argue that the team is somewhat less committed to Malaysia than it says.

In truth, there isn't another Malaysian driver worthy of the seat which puts Fernandes and his team in a quandary but also explains why Fairuz is in demand: indeed, it would be surprising if there has not been moves by Petronas for him to join Mercedes at some level. Also, Fairuz was racing in the Renault 3.5 litre series in 2009 for his family's Mofaz Racing Team.

And there is more bad news for Bahar: the Canadian authorities are looking at the livery of Group Lotus cars: they say that the black and gold may be in breach of Canada's strict laws on banning tobacco advertising. Unlike Ferrari's barely hidden links with Marlboro - it removed what everyone except Ferrari said was a sneaky reference to the tobacco brand only in mid 2010 - disguised because of the Ferrari red colour, painting the cars black and gold is, some in Canada say, simply too close to the original purpose of the livery.

Lotus-Renault, unlike Ferrari, will not be getting any tobacco money: the colour scheme is nothing more than cashing in on the history of Team Lotus (links to which Group displays at its offices).

Imperial Tobacco is quoted in several media this morning as saying that it is a serious matter for the company and that "It is categorically against the law to present any likeness to a cigarette pack. If I were Lotus (-Renaul) though, I would be concerned - I wonder if they are aware of the law in Canada.” The Canadian law says “No person shall promote a tobacco product by means of an advertisement that depicts, in whole or in part, a tobacco product, its package or a brand element of one or that evokes a tobacco product or a brand element" and is interpreted as saying that no form of sports sponsorship by tobacco companies is permitted.

pix courtesy Team Lotus (1) and Group Lotus(2)