Tag Archives: Lotus

Lotus F1 CEO Matthew Carter says he still doesn’t know when the planned takeover by Renault will be finalised.

After Suzuka both sides announced that a letter of intent had been signed, but cautioned that the deal would only go through if certain conditions were met.

“I honestly don’t know,” Carter told this writer when asked about the likely time scale. “We’re working on things. It’s clear that all the parties involved want to get this resolved as quickly as possible, and we’ll work thing through as quickly as we can.

“It’s the same for us anyway, it really doesn’t make a helluva lot of difference. We get on with doing our job on the race track. We’ve been confident for a long time that things are going to be resolved. It’s just taking a long time.”

However, he admitted that the delay was not positive: “It’s not helping, but at the end of the day as we’ve always said we’re here, we’re racing, we’ll be at all the races. What happens behind the scenes or what happens above our level will happen.”

The letter of intent has bought Lotus more time with its ongoing legal case, and Carter admits that some of the pressure is off: “The legal process was the legal process, we were always confident that it was going to be resolved and we were going to get through it. But it’s hard to say too much and talk too much when you’re in the middle of things.”

Carter insisted that Renault’s attempt to get a better deal with Bernie Ecclestone is not the cause of the hold up.

“To be perfectly honest I don’t think there’s a sticking point. I think it’s just a case of everyone working as hard as they can and as fast as they can to get the thing resolved as quickly as possible.”

Meanwhile when asked by Motorsport.com why the process was dragging on Ecclestone himself claimed he didn’t know.

“No idea,” said the F1 boss. “They say they’re going to buy it, I’m sure it’s not that they’re running out of money, I’m sure there are other reasons. Maybe the sellers aren’t really sellers.”

Renault and Lotus have made the first formal public acknowledgement of an impending future takeover deal by confirming that a letter of intent has been signed.

The news comes on the day of a the court case in London involving HMRC, the UK tax authorities. The judge had previously told Lotus that there would be no more extensions involving the £900,000 claim.

The letter involves Renault and Lotus F1 parent company Gravity Motorsports. It makes it clear that it is still only a “potential acquisition,” and that it will proceed only if “all terms and conditions are met between them and other interested parties.” The latter group clearly includes Bernie Ecclestone.

The full statement read as follows: “Renault Group and Gravity Motorsports S.a.r.l., an affiliate of Genii Capital SA, are pleased to announce the signature of a Letter of Intent regarding the potential acquisition by Renault of a controlling stake in Lotus F1 Team Ltd.

“The signature of this Letter of Intent marks Renault’s first step towards the project of a Renault Formula 1 team from the 2016 racing season thereby extending 38 years of commitment of the brand to world’s premier motorsport championship series.

“Renault Group and Gravity will work together in the coming weeks to eventually turn this initial undertaking into a definitive transaction provided all terms and conditions are met between them and other interested parties.”

Lotus technical director Nick Chester is confident that the team has made a big step with the E23, and not just as a result of the timely switch from Renault to Mercedes power.

Chester says that the chassis is much improved, and compliments the stronger power unit.

“This year is looking a lot better, the power unit is a big step forward,” said Chester. “The chassis is also a step forward, the drivers can get a lot more from it and it’s easier to drive on the limit, as well as being more predictable.

“We spent some of the test exploring the E23’s suspension geometry and it has a lot of effect on the balance of the car in the middle of the slow speed corners. We’re also making the car less sensitive for the drivers so it’s easier to extract performance.

“The power unit has strong performance and response and it’s extremely reliable, we’ve only used one unit throughout testing. Its installation is nice which gives us some benefits, such as the way we’ve organised our cooling system.”

Chester admitted that there had been some challenges associated with the change of supplier, especially related to cooling and installation: “The response of the power unit in addition to peak power does play a significant role and we have found that tuning our control systems has been made easier with a very responsive power unit.

“I don’t think our approach changes as we’re always aiming to make the car better. The area where we didn’t take too many risks was the engine installation. We wanted to be reasonably comfortable with cooling and we’ve been quite conservative ahead of Melbourne. The rest of the car is our usual approach, pushing the boundaries as we try to keep finding improvements.

“It’s been a challenge to fit the engine as the rear surface of the chassis is quite different and we had to do a lot of work to have a neat installation. We’ve gone back to air to air charge air cooling because the packaging switch to Mercedes power on a short timeline meant we had to find a simple solution.”

Chester says that the E23 has already been significantly upgraded, and that bigger updates are coming for Malaysia and China.

“It has changed, there’s been some updates throughout testing and some more minor ones are on the way for Melbourne, with the bigger upgrades planned for rounds two and three.

“We have a normal programme through the race weekend, it won’t be particularly conservative and will be about maximising the car. We take a view based on risk for fitting development parts, sometimes there is minimal risk for extra performance so parts can be introduced immediately. Sometimes there can be a downside and you need to accumulate mileage for a few practice sessions before fitting for qualifying and the race.”

Lotus has released the first images of the new E23, the first Enstone car to be powered by Mercedes.

The most notable visible aspect of the car is its conventional nose, the first to be seen on a 2015 car.

“Improvements within our Design, Aero and Simulation departments have all contributed to the development of a car which is a huge step forward,” said team CEO Matthew Carter. “As a team we are confident that the new car coupled with additions to the Race team will enable a huge leap forward and we are full of optimism going into the new season. It is time to put the disappointment of last season behind us and benefit from 12 months of hard work; we are ready to return to our rightful place at the pinnacle of the sport.”

“The E23 Hybrid represents a massive step forward for us,” said technical director Nick Chester. “It’s no secret that we struggled with last year’s car, so we’ve targeted every area that caused us an issue. We’ve made strong progress in the wind tunnel as well as in areas such as packaging and cooling. We expect the E23 to perform far, far better than its predecessor. In terms of what’s new, obviously a massive change for us is a new Power Unit supplier.

“We made this change as it looked and looks to be the one area of the car which could bring us the greatest performance gain. It’s not just performance, but reliability and driveability as well as packaging and cooling too. The E22 did deliver good figures in the wind tunnel, even if it was difficult to unlock its potential, so we’ve paid more attention to making the characteristics of the car more adaptable. In terms of the suspension, we were delivered something of a blow last year when the front-rear interconnected suspension was outlawed mid-season.

“The E23’s suspension design is specific to the updated regulations so we’re not trying to update a system originally intended to work a different way. We learnt a lot in many areas of the car over the course of 2014 so there are many lessons which have been applied. We know we’ve made a big step. We won’t know how our car will fare in relative terms until we’re out in action at a Grand Prix, but we certainly expect to be much more competitive than last year.”

One of the most intriguing aspects of 2015 is the switch by Lotus from Renault to Mercedes power, a move that gives the team that won a race as recently as 2013 a much stronger power unit than it had at its disposal last year.

Trackside operations director Alan Permane is adamant that the team has learned from its disappointing season, and will make a step forward.

“It was hard work but for very little reward, unfortunately,” he told this writer. “We will learn from it and move on. We’ve got a very nice looking package for 2015, so hopefully we’ll do a better job.

“I think after a year of experience we know what you need from these power units and how to operate them. Of course it will be subtly different with the Mercedes, but we’ll be in a better position than we were a year ago.”

Permane draws some inspiration from the way Williams turned things around when it moved to Mercedes: “We hope to do that, quite honestly. Let’s not pretend it’s just engine with them, they did a very nice chassis as well, and we need to do the same.”

The key difference is that Williams brought in some new technical personnel over the past couple of years, that has not been the case at Lotus. However Permane says that is not a concern.

“It’s also good to have continuity. People will tell you what you want to hear. We had a fantastic season in 2013, we did a great car, and you’d say to build on that you’d want to keep the same people and keep going.

“Williams had many years in the doldrums and changes things for the better of course, and did a great job. You look at Red Bull they had the same team for all those championship years. I don’t think changing stuff around for the sake of it is what you want to do.”