It’s a bit of an odd piece of news to hear but there will be two Lotus teams racing on the grid in next seasons Formula 1.
This hasn’t made too many people happy in the community and rightfully so, the circumstances that have led to this coming about were reasons with little grounding. For such a small team, I don’t see how they can warrant the use of their name across two teams.
So what’s happened?
We all saw the return of Lotus in this 2010 season with the team Lotus racing, which was brought in by Tony Fernandes who bought the license to use the name. This was the return of the Lotus racing name which was dropped back in 1994. However, Lotus Renault GP came about when the Company that builds Lotus road cars, which is historically different from the racing team, agreed a title sponsorship deal with Renault thus brining them into being an equity partner with their F1 team.
All sound a little too confusing?
Well yes, it still is rather confusing; to sum it all up here’s a look at a little chart:
- Lotus Racing from 2010 season -> Lotus Racing for 2011 season
- Renault - > Lotus Renault GP
So there you have it, the tangled world of motor racing and all its weird habits. I look forward to finding out what will happen between the teams, will there be any sort of rivalry or perhaps an amalgamation of tactics and resources to get that Lotus name some recognition in this recent F1 scene. If you don’t want the hassle of knowing what to drive you better come Karting instead, where all our karts are under the same great name of Team Sport, simple with no hassle, book now.