Adam Cooper F1

Last night – while this blog was on a plane from Singapore! – the future Team Lotus outfit  reacted to the attempt from Group Lotus to sabotage its use of the name in 2011.

Tony Fernandes and his partners have reiterated that their purchase of the Team Lotus name from David Hunt is legitimate, and they intend to prove that in the English courts.

Tellingly, the team says that when it did its license deal with Group Lotus the latter made it clear that it didn’t own the Team Lotus name – contrary to what it is saying now – and reaffirmed that the team would have to run as Lotus Racing. The interesting thing of course is that the Group Lotus management has changed between then and now, with Dany Bahar and his associates coming in.

Lotus Racing also says that there “will have to be discussions” with Group Lotus and Proton about the termination of its license, and the team clearly believes that the car company did not have grounds to end the deal.

The team summed up its position in a statement from Lotus Racing CEO, Riad Asmat: “This has been an incredible year for everyone associated with Lotus Racing. Last week we brought Team Lotus back to the Formula One grid when we announced that we had bought Team Lotus Ventures from David Hunt, and would be racing as the successor to one of the most iconic names in world motorsport.

“This year, we have established ourselves as the leading new team in Formula One as a licensee of Group Lotus, and, although we all dreamt of bringing Team Lotus back to where it belongs, we could not do so in 2010 because those rights were owned by Team Lotus Ventures. As Tune Group has now bought Team Lotus Ventures it means we can now use the Team Lotus name for 2011 and beyond. We are all delighted we can go into 2011 with total confidence in what we own, and what we can take to the track.

“However, given that this is contested by Group Lotus we think now is the time to clear this matter up so there can be no further arguments. We have therefore today issued proceedings in the English High Court for a declaration that Team Lotus Ventures has the rights to use the Team Lotus name and everything associated with that brand in relation to Formula One.

 “Racing under the Team Lotus name from 2011 means our licence with Group Lotus has now come to an end. In reality, this has nothing to do with how we will go racing in 2011, as the ownership of Team Lotus has been clearly defined for many years. David was approached a number of times about selling the rights of Team Lotus Ventures, including one official offer of from Proton/Group Lotus themselves. That must have been tempting for David, as the rightful owner of the Team Lotus brand and its rights. Oddly enough, Group Lotus also recently tried to revoke the Team Lotus trade marks at a hearing at the Trade Mark Registry, but they were unsuccessful. I suspect David’s misgivings about their previous offer to buy were justified by that action.

“The licence debate really is a non-issue. It was a simple licence, attached to a one year sponsorship deal with Proton for 2010 alone, and in fact for a tiny proportion of the amount invested by the shareholders into the team – approximately 1.5% of the total budget. Unfortunately we never reached the point where we discussed extending that one year deal.

“When we signed our licence to compete as Lotus Racing with Group Lotus, they were very clear that we could not make any reference to Team Lotus as they had no rights at all to the Team Lotus name or its rights. In fact, in the licence agreement between 1Malaysia Racing and Group Lotus the use of the Team Lotus name is expressly prohibited as they had agreed contractually, as long ago as 1985, that they had not rights to use that name. That was obviously something we had enormous respect for, and made no attempt to change until we could do so rightfully, and with a very clear understanding of what we had acquired in Team Lotus Ventures.

“So now the licence we ran under this year has been withdrawn by Group Lotus, and while we accept that this obviously means we have reached the end of that chapter, it opens up a new and very exciting one for everyone in our team. There will have to be some discussions with Proton and Group Lotus about the entitlement to terminate the licence. Frankly, they are trying to say that some very trivial points, including t-shirt design approvals of all things, gave them the right to terminate, but we thoroughly reject this.

“Now we look to the future. The details of what has been going on behind the scenes are now coming to light, and that’s good because it means the shareholders of Proton, the government, will now know the truth of what has been going on. However the important thing is to look at what we are doing to guarantee future success. We have already invested heavily in ensuring the Malaysian /ASEAN motorsports platform grows, something that cannot be said for our colleagues at Group Lotus.

“We created a world first when we ran Nabil Jeffri in our aero test earlier this year – the youngest ever F1 test driver. Fairuz has been gaining invaluable experience at the highest level by driving for us, and, through Tony and Din’s AirAsia Driver Development programme, we are giving young Malaysian/ASEAN talent the chance to reach the top. We are so proud to have laid the foundations for future success, and our fans acknowledge this every day.

“Personally I think it’s odd that our colleagues at Group Lotus have not embraced what we are giving them – a global platform for creating huge awareness and great value for their operations, all at no cost to them. In one year we have made huge strides in the growth of Lotus Racing, and now it’s all about Team Lotus.” 

We await the next chapter with interest…

Have the plans of Tony Fernandes just gone up in smoke?

As predicted a few days ago in this blog – and fully explained in my feature on www.autosport.com – Group Lotus has launched an all out attack on Tony Fernandes, and claims that he has no right to use the Team Lotus name in 2011.

Fernandes had a licence from Group Lotus to use the name in 2010, but that was withdrawn by new boss Dany Bahar, who has F1 ambitions of his own. Fernandes has now bought the Team Lotus  name from David Hunt. However, Group Lotus claims that it owns that name as well.

Today Group Lotus issued the following statement which makes its intentions clear:

 There is and always has been only one Lotus, the Lotus started by Colin Chapman. From the beginning Lotus made road cars and raced racing cars. Until 1994, Group Lotus, the road car manufacturer and Team Lotus, which operated the Formula 1 team, were in common ownership with common directors. In 1994, Team Lotus failed and Lotus has not raced since. Since 1994, David Hunt has claimed to have acquired assets of Team Lotus, including its name, from the liquidator. He has never raced as Lotus. Mr. Hunt’s attempt to acquire the name Team Lotus was ineffective. Group Lotus is the owner of all rights in the “Lotus” automotive brand including those relating to Formula 1.

Last year, Tony Fernandes and 1 Malaysia Racing Team recognised this by taking a licence from Group Lotus to use the “Lotus” brand for the “Lotus Racing” team in the current Formula 1 season. With PROTON’s agreement, Group Lotus has now terminated its licence to 1 Malaysia Racing Team to use the “Lotus Racing” brand in the 2011 and future Formula 1 seasons as a result of the flagrant and persistent breaches of the licence by 1 Malaysia Racing Team, which were damaging to the “Lotus” brand.

Following that termination, neither 1 Malaysia Racing Team, nor any other company associated with Mr. Fernandes such as Tune Group Sdn Bhd or Team Lotus Ventures Limited, has the authority of Group Lotus to use any “Lotus” brand in the 2011 Formula 1 season. This includes the use of the brand “Team Lotus”.

Group Lotus understands that Mr. Fernandes intends to rebrand the current “Lotus Racing” Formula 1 team to “Team Lotus” for the 2011 Formula 1 season. Mr. Fernandes indicates that Tune Group has acquired the rights to the name “Team Lotus” from a business formerly owned by David Hunt called Team Lotus Ventures Limited. Group Lotus believes these rights to have no proper legal foundation, a fact of which Mr. Fernandes was well aware when his company purchased them.

PROTON will support Group Lotus in taking all necessary steps to protect its rights in the “Lotus” name, including resisting any attempts by Mr. Fernandes or his companies, or any other unauthorised person, to use the “Lotus” name in the 2011 Formula 1 season.

Dato’ Sri Mohd. Nadzmi Mohd. Salleh, Chairman of PROTON Holdings Berhad and Group Lotus commented, “We believe the Lotus brand to be one of the most valuable brands in Formula 1 today. We are the owners of this brand, and will take all necessary steps to protect it. Tony Fernandes has no rights to use the Lotus brand in the 2011 Formula 1 season, and we will strongly resist any attempts by him to use our brand without our permission and will withdraw our sponsorship of the Lotus Racing team.”

“To put it simply, Group Lotus is everything Lotus. The fact that 1 Malaysia Racing Team entered into an agreement with Group Lotus to use the brand means that both Mr. Fernandes and 1 Malaysia Racing Team recognises and acknowledges Group Lotus’ rights,” he added.

Pirelli has formally confirmed that Pedro de la Rosa will join the company as test driver, replacing Nick Heidfeld.

The news originally came out last week via a speech from the company boss, much to the surprise of the Spanish driver, who had only just been dropped by Sauber and had not yet completed his contractual arrangements. That process has now been finalised.

“I’m really pleased to be joining Pirelli,” said de la Rosa in a statement. “Tyre testing is something that I have always enjoyed as it is a very big challenge, especially in Formula One. The information you can get from telemetry and sensors is valuable, but nothing replaces the individual feeling of a driver with new tyres so I hope I can be a real asset to Pirelli.

“There’s not a lot of time left and a huge amount of work to do, but I’m very much looking forward to it and I am sure that our collaboration will be a success. A lot of useful work has been done already and now we have the opportunity of taking it forward.”

 Pirelli says that last week’s test at Monza with Romain Grosjan concentrated on defining the construction tyres, with the Frenchman running 30-40 lap stints.

Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Paul Hembery said: “Romain jumped in to do some durability testing and did an excellent job. The objective of this test was to confirm the structural specification of the tyres we will use for the first time at the test in Abu Dhabi, and we now move on to working on our rain tyres and compound definition.

“Moving forwards, we will also be joined by Pedro de la Rosa, who has the benefit of having the most recent Formula One experience and is a renowned tester. So far, everything has gone according to plan and we’re pleased to report that we are only about a second per lap off the times of our predecessors, which is a great achievement.”

The F1 world continues to wait for news on the Korean GP after Bernie Ecclestone for the first time suggested that that there were doubts over the race.

It would not be unusual to assume that Bernie was sending a message in his typically mischievous way, but considering that the Korean promoter was present in Singapore, he didn’t have to use the media to get it across. The uncertainty his comments have created has not helped anyone.

Most sources continue to suggest that we will go there come what may, although someone close to the action told me at the weekend that it was now 50:50.

Charlie Whiting was due to inspect the track tomorrow, but decided there was no point for the rather fundamental reason that the top surface has not yet been completed. He is instead heading home, and will now go to Korea on the Monday after the Japanese GP. Thus what the FIA’s own rules dictate should have been a 90-day inspection will be held some 10 days prior to the start of the meeting.

And at that stage of course things start to become difficult, because the F1 freight will already be starting its journey from Suzuka, and while many team personnel are due to come home between races, some are scheduled to travel straight to Korea. A cancellation at that late stage will not exactly be convenient for anyone.

Meanwhile the teams are increasingly frustrated in their dealings with the venue, specifically with regard to the unfinished hospitality buildings, and the huge fees that they are being charged to rent them for the weekend.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domencali says his team has to keep its collective feet on the ground, despite scoring two consecutive wins.

Fernando Alonso has crept up the World Championship table over the past five races, but Domenicali insists that it’s impossible to predict how things will play out.

“It was good that we won this race because in terms of the points for the driver’s classification we did a step forward, this is what we wanted,” said Domenicali. “And now with four races to go the situation regarding the championship is very, very open. It’s a shame that yesterday we lost the second car and Felipe started from the last position, with the problem with the gearbox it was impossible to do better than what he did. He tried to do a strategy stopping on the first lap, and seeing if the safety car could reshuffle the cars, but unfortunately it came at the wrong moment for that strategy.

“I would say generally speaking it was a great result, a great performance. It’s good to see that the team is still focussed and concentrated, because we know that we have done nothing apart from winning a couple of races. But the championship is very far from the end.”

Domenicali didn’t want to make too many predictions about form in Japan and beyond, and stressed that from now on, it’s a mental game.

“I don’t know. Our competitors are so strong, it’s better to wait and see. For sure for us it’s important, and I said to my guys, to work very hard on reliability. We paid a big price this weekend as a team. The car seems to be better in terms of general performance, also on this kind of track. We will have some little updates, nothing major, but now I think a lot will be in the head of the drivers, in the heads of the people who have to work, and the reliability, rather than an incredible improvement in performance.

“We know that all the teams now are in a period where they have to switch to put all the resources into the new car, otherwise they will be very late in the end. I think it will be a very interesting end to the season for sure.”

This is why Lewis Hamilton came to a stop...

Two retirements in two races through collisions with other drivers have left Lewis Hamilton struggling to keep his title challenge on course.

Hamilton says he thought he had left Mark Webber enough room prior to their clash in the Singapore GP, and believed that he had safely cleared the Red Bull.

He added that he didn’t really know what had happened, having not seen a TV replay at that time. Hamilton was forced to stop because his left rear wheel was completely broken, as my picture shows.

“I saw that Mark made a mistake and got caught up with a backmarker, so I was in a position to slipstream him,” said Hamilton. “I was on the outside, going into Turn Seven. I thought I was enough past him. I couldn’t see him any longer, so I braked. I turned in, tried to leave enough room on the inside, and the next thing I know, I got hit.

“It was a bit of a daze really, so I’m not really sure what happened. He was in my blind spot, so I didn’t even know he was still there. I honestly don’t even know what happened. All I know is I went in, I didn’t see anyone alongside me, and next thing I know my tyre’s blown, and that’s it.

“I think it’s a racing incident, as far as I know. I don’t really know what happened, I need to look on the replay.”

Hamilton was a little cautious about his title chances.

“I think it’s a tough call. There’s still four races, but I couldn’t have expected a worse two races, especially at this crucial point of the year. I’ll do what I can.

“Twenty points is massive, with four races to go, that’s a big gap.”

Here's how Mark Webber's front tyre looked at the end of the race...

...and here you can really see how lucky he was

Mark Webber had a miraculous escape in Singapore when he made it to the finish in third place despite damage to his right front tyre after his clash with Lewis Hamilton.

The tyre made it through the 26 laps after the clash despite being ‘unseated’ from the rim. Webber felt a vibration and actually ended the race with a blister on his hand.

The team’s telemetry did not show a loss of pressure, but there was an unusual indication that the volume of the air in the tyre had changed – easily explained by my picture – and the team could not explain that until the crew saw the tyre up close after the race.  The tyre finally lost its air as the car sat in parc ferme.

Meanwhile Hamilton’s own retirement was caused because his left rear wheel was completely shattered.

Michael Schumacher will start the Singapore GP from ninth place, having made Q3 for the first time since Silverstone, and only the ninth time in 15 attempts this year.

He’ll start two places behind team mate Nico Rosberg, who again had the edge on him in qualifying.

“Is it that long?,” said Michael when told about his drought. “Anyway it’s good, and even more being on the right side of the grid is very important here, as I understand from last year. We have a good statistic for the first lap, so I hope to keep it up, and come home with some important and valuable points for the constructors. It is probably true, once the start is done, it will be difficult. But the first corners are going to be the crucial ones, to make up your positions.”

Schumacher said he was happy with the way his car has performed this weekend.

“It’s been going OK. We started off in P1 and P3 initially quite good, and then as the session developed we sort of changed bits and pieces, tried to improve the car, but it didn’t seem to come much forward. Finally for qualifying we put everything together and got a reasonable package out of it.

“Even in qualifying we were still experimenting a bit around, which paid out partly. Overall we could have been seventh, it probably would have been the maximum, what Nico was doing, he optimised his situation quite well, and did a good job. It’s up to us to come close to him.

“I had very good long runs yesterday. It’s been going all year long that Nico in a one lap situation sneaks off a couple of tenths from me, and then when it comes to race pace, I actually look stronger than him, and yesterday that was the case. I look forward to tomorrow.”

Michael says he likes the night time aspect of Singapore: “It’s very special and exceptional, considering the time schedule as well that we have live in. It’s pretty unusual.”

Title contender Jenson Button will start the Singapore GP from fourth place on the grid, right behind McLaren team mate Lewis Hamilton. Button said he didn’t get qualifying quite right, especially on the first part of his crucial lap.

“Qualy 3 I found very tough,” he explained. “My first run in qualy 3 I pushed very hard out of the box, because I was the first car out, and I wanted to make sure that we get two runs in for both cars.

“In the first sector I pushed quite hard and damaged the rear tyres quite a bit. I struggled then and the second lap I thought I’d take it easier on the out lap, and on the first sector a tiny bit easier.

“But I didn’t have any tyre temperature when I got the first sector, so I struggled with that. The second and third sectors were very good, and I set the quickest time in the middle sector. Not too bad, fourth, and a lot closer to the Red Bulls. Ferrari looks quick as well. Reasonably happy, much better than my qualifying here last year.”

Button hopes he can repeat Monza, where he made up a crucial at the start, but says it won’t be easy with team mate Lewis Hamilton up ahead.

“The start is the key. To get a good start is very important. My biggest issue is that I’ve got the same car as mine just in front, and he’ll get just as good a start as me. I won’t be able to overtake him off the start, but you never know into Turn One.

“But Vettel has been making a lot of poor starts lately. I’m not saying that it’s his fault, but the pace of the Red Bulls off the line hasn’t been good. That’s a positive for us, and we’ll see what happens.

“I’m reasonably happy with today, and I think we can have a good race tomorrow. Our pace was good yesterday.”

Button said it was good to have the title contenders at the front: “There are a few people I’d rather be in front of right now! You see that none of us have really made any big mistakes or anything in qualifying and it’s all going smoothly at the moment, and we’ll just see what happens tomorrow in the race.”

Adrian Sutil has been fined $10,000 by the Singapore stewards for attempting to drive his damaged car back to the pits.

The German broke his front suspension when he bounced over the notorious Turn 10 chicane in Friday’s second session. The front left wheel folded over the nose, but he decided to carry on and try to get back to the pits. He had done a large chunk of the lap before the team advised him to pull off, and he went down an escape road.

The FIA reported that Sutil “did not leave the track as soon as it was safe to do so, and this was potentially dangerous to spectators, marshals and other drivers.”

The FIA has clamped down on drivers continuing with damaged cars, especially if wheels are involved. Incidents last year involving Sebastian Vettel (after the clash with Kubica in Australia) and Fernando Alonso (a loose wheel in Hungary) attracted the attention of the stewards.  Drivers are now obliged to stop as soon as it is safe to do so, according to Article 30.14

The Felipe Massa accident in Hungary last year also put a focus on the repercussions of debris falling off cars.