The dispute with Group Lotus prevents Team Lotus from finding sponsors
As the verdict in the trial between Team Lotus and Group Lotus has not yet been delivered, Tony Fernandes admits that this legal dispute has prevented him from attracting as many sponsors as he wanted.
Thus, the single-seaters of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen do not feature many sponsors apart from the companies also owned by Tony Fernandes and his associates, as only the EQ8 energy drink is part of it.
Before his national ordeal, the Malaysian businessman stated in the team’s internal publication that “the only thing stopping us (from having many sponsors) is this trial, which has undoubtedly deterred a few sponsors. The problem is that people do not know who is right and who is wrong. But this is changing. I think a lot of people now realize that our name is of little importance since you invest in people and attitude. The sponsors who realize this will love us.”
But if there is a media-judicial battle that has lasted for months, it’s because the name in question indeed has specific value. As we have said in the past, if Team Lotus were to be forced by British justice to remove the reference to Lotus from its name, the team would lose the rights acquired with its tenth place in the 2010 championship as Lotus Racing. This is probably the only reason why the team is not called Team AirAsia, as is the case for the new GP2 team.
Tony Fernandes therefore has no intention of giving up: “We will defend our territory. I think we have already proven that. We are facing a company linked to the Malaysian government, we are facing Group Lotus, and we are facing Force India. We will not give up, but we will do it cleanly.”
In addition to the legal battle with the Vijay Mallya team, there is a sporting ambition to do better than the Silverstone team since the official goal is to be eighth at the end of the championship, even if 10th place seems more realistic: You cannot build a Formula One team in 18 months. The team we are targeting is Force India. They are Jordan. They have been there for 20 years. There is also Williams, whom I watched when I was a child. Toro Rosso benefits from the presence of Red Bull. Sauber has been around for years. They have extraordinary facilities built for them by BMW. We have to look at things from this perspective.
The Malaysian event did, however, bring some consolation for Team Lotus as an extension of the agreement with Dell was announced: from a mere supplier, the former world number one in PCs becomes a technical partner. This will materialize with the provision of more advanced technical solutions from the American company, which in return will be able to put its logo on the T128 starting from the Chinese Grand Prix.
With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr
