Words by Dionysis Nanos
So, let’s get things straight here. I was going to write about the fact that Racing Point is basically using a pink Mercedes for 2020 (well… not exactly using cause the Coronavirus has different plans but anyway), but then I remembered that this doesn’t even qualify as a controversy cause part sharing is part of the rules, so I’ll maybe touch on it a different time. Then out of sheer boredom and with nothing to write I decided to play a bit of Forza 5, because if you can’t enjoy old racing games what are you doing as a car fan? Soon enough I stumbled upon a Lotus F1 car from 2015, and suddenly I got hit with an idea as great as the story I’m about to tell. It hit me that once upon a time almost ten years ago we had two Lotus teams. Great I shall write about that, buuut there was a problem. Literally no one has made anything on YouTube or anywhere in general, so after my own research here’s what really happened back then.
So, Obama is in his first year as President, the iPhone 3GS was a hot item and Greece’s economy was about to blow up like the Hindenburg, or in other words, it’s 2009. In the world of F1 that meant that Brawn GP and Jenson Button were about to pull a one off wonder winning both titles and that many changes were going to take place as far as regulations were concerned. It was also the year that the FIA announced that they wanted new F1 teams to join for 2010 in an effort to open up the paddock. That gave us many gems like Marussia and HRT, which we might cover in the future pretending we remember them, but there was also another team that wanted a piece of the pie, Litespeed, and this is where the story begins…
The Litespeed F3 car
Don’t know who Litespeed were? Don’t worry you and the rest of the world doesn’t know so don’t feel alone. They were an F3 team from Norfolk in the UK of all places that went and put a bid for a place in F1 when the 2010 expansion was announced, and they managed to do it under the Team Lotus name. “Now calm down” I hear you say. “What does a Norfolk F3 team have to do with one of the biggest names in F1 history?” you ask. Well, time for a quick history lesson. Team Lotus were a sister company to Lotus Cars that run in F1 for decades winning many many titles, until 1994, when everything went more south than a football match between Alabama and Georgia and the team folded. But before that happened, David Hunt, or in plain English James Hunt’s brother, bought the Team Lotus name and intellectual property. So Litespeed turned to David Hunt who gave his permission for the Team Lotus name to be used, and they placed a bid…. which didn’t work cause in the end they didn’t have enough funding. So they reached out to a Malaysian gentleman named Tony Fernandes to basically fund a Team Lotus F1 entry, which he did. Long story short, Fernandes secured backing from the Malaysian government and from the actual Lotus car company to run a team for 2010 called Lotus Racing. All great so far then. We have an historic F1 team returning to the grid, hoorah end of story. Sadly things get more and more complicated…
You see, during the season, Fernandes bought the rights to the Team Lotus name from David Hunt thus renaming the team from Lotus Racing to Team Lotus. At the end of the season though, Proton, Lotus’s parent company announced they weren’t going to offer naming rights for the Lotus name to Fernandes after he breached the initial contract that was signed. But Fernandes already had the “Team Lotus” rights which he could use since “Team Lotus” wasn’t associated with the actual Lotus car company anymore. Are you still with me? Good. Stuff is about to become even more complicated.
The Lotus Renault F1 car being tested
After Proton pulled support from Fernandes, they let Lotus buy a 25 percent share in Renault’s F1 team, since Renault wanted to step back and become an engine supplier like they were in the 90s. So for 2011 Lotus became title sponsors to Renault, similar to Aston Martin with Redbull nowadays, running a black and gold livery like the historic cars from the 80s. And all that was great too. But do you see what has happened here? We have two teams, both named Lotus and both using Renault engines (forgot to mention that Fernandes signed a deal with Renault in 2010 to become their engine supplier for the following season) with the only distinction between the two being that the “Team Lotus” cars ran in yellow and green while the “Lotus Renault” cars ran in classic black and gold. Quickly that meant that legal action had to be taken, and it did in the High Court Of Justice in London.
So after the proceedings a number of things were decided. Firstly Fernandes would still be able to use the “Team Lotus” name, but not the single “Lotus” word, as he had bought that from David Hunt, who originally bought it from the real Lotus in 1994. Also, the actual Lotus Group could use the “Lotus” name but not “Team Lotus” which was owned by Fernandes. So everything was solved right? Well…
The Caterham CT03 F1 car from 2012
Sometime in 2011, and without mentioning anything to Court, Fernandes bought Caterham, forming the Caterham Group. Once that was found out it was back to court again for Lotus and Fernandes, with Fernandes saying that Team Lotus and Caterham would remain separate, even though he made promotional videos for Caterham while wearing Team Lotus apparel. In other words, sensing that he would be forced to pay bucket loads of cold hard cash to Proton, Fernandes bought Caterham so he could rename his team for 2012, and that’s exactly what happened. “Team Lotus” got renamed to “Caterham F1”, while Lotus bought the Renault F1 team becoming a full fledged Lotus F1 team with some success, in the form of 2 wins and 25 podiums. Caterham on the other hand… well that didn’t go so well, as their best place finishes were 19th place, once in the hands of Vitaly Petrov in 2012 and the other with Marcus Ericsson in 2014. 2014 also saw Caterham going into administration with money for the last races coming from crowdfunding. What a way to go out with..
The 2010s were a mysterious period for F1. What started out as an effort to open up the sport to fresh teams ended up making the already established teams even stronger. By 2016 all of the new teams that had joined in 2010 had gone bankrupt. But at least we have many interesting stories left, and of course can you think of another time when you had two different but arguably same cars racing against each other? I’m waiting…