It’s that time of the week again: time for us to look at the past teams that made an exit from the sport of Formula One, having scored no points. This week, we remember Team Lotus.
It had been well over a decade since the Lotus teamed bowed out of Formula One in the mid-1990s and the Formula One world was able to see the return of the iconic Lotus name. After failing to gain entry into the 2010 Formula One season using the Lotus name, Litespeed F3 approached entrepreneur Tony Fernandes who was sponsoring Williams using his AirAsia airline brand.
With funding from Ferandes’ company Tune Group and another Malaysian company Naza Group, along with a partnership from the Malaysian government, a company named 1Malaysia Racing Team was born. The company was part of the 1Malaysia project to promote unity in Malaysia and had approached Proton Holdings, the Malaysian company that owns Lotus, to run the team under the Lotus name. Fernandes himself took the position as team principal.
The team applied to become part of the championship for 2010. They were accepted late, which delayed the development of the car. By the end of 2009, the team had recruited Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen to drive the car, with Malaysian driver Fairuz Fauzy taking on the role as reserve driver.
The team’s debut went well, with both cars posting results in Bahrain despite a late mechanical failure for Trulli. The same could not be said for the Australian Grand Prix, with Trulli failing to start because a hydraulics issue. Things were concerning for the team in Turkey, as the duo both suffered similar mechanical failures just a lap apart.
No points were scored by the team in their debut season, but they had managed to beat HRT and Virgin Racing, who had also just finished their debut season. Things were looking bright for the team, announcing that they were going to build a wind-tunnel facility at its base and that they would be expanding their GP2 team’s operations. The team had also replaced their Cosworth engine with a Renault engine for 2011 onward.
Near the end of the season, it was announced that Tune Group had purchased the Team Lotus brand that was previously used for Formula One from David Hunt. At the end of 2010, Lotus Cars filed a lawsuit against the team, claiming that they had no rights to use the Lotus name. Team Lotus was granted a Formula One entry into the 2011 season, but Lotus Cars had also formed a partnership with Renault, entering as Lotus Renault GP. The 2011 season saw two teams on the grid both holding the Lotus name.
The conflicting teams presented issues early on. Fernandes already had plans in place to run a black and gold livery for the 2011 season, but Lotus Renault had beat them to it, releasing a livery similar to the one used by Lotus in the ‘80s. Therefore Team Lotus continued to use the green and yellow livery to avoid further conflict with the company.
The legal battle began into the 2011 season. The season was pretty much the same as the year before for the team, although they were not able to top their P12 finish that they had earned at the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix. The team retained Kovalainen and Trulli for the season, although Karun Chandhok was given a chance to replace Trulli at the German Grand Prix as stated in his contract with the team. The team managed to finish more races then the year before, but still wasn’t able to score points or close the gap on the closest teams in front. The team continued to outperform HRT and Marussia.
Before the first court hearing regarding the team’s legal battles with Lotus, David Hunt stated that Fernandes was not honoring his contract he signed when purchasing the Team Lotus name. He had stated that he would not support the team in the battle against Lotus. However, before the Australian Grand Prix the relationship was patched and Hunt was again back in support of the team.
Part way through the season the judge had reached the decision that Fernandes indeed owned the right to the Team Lotus name and logo, but said that Lotus Cars was the only company that could use the word Lotus on its own. Team Lotus was allowed to keep the name and logo, but had to pay damages to Lotus Cars for breaking their license agreement that allowed them to use the Lotus name in 2010.
During the court process, Fernandes had also purchased Caterham Cars with the intention of rebranding them. That landed them in court a month later, with the judge quite angry that Fernandes had not explained his purchase during the original case.
Fernandes applied for a name change before the start of the 2012 season to change the team name to Caterham F1, as did Lotus Renault GP to change their name to Lotus. Both requests were accepted. Team Lotus and the Caterham Group are owned as two independent businesses not linked with each other.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
