Lotus Racing will take the naming dispute to court
Lotus Racing is going to court. That’s the latest from the row between Team Lotus and Malaysian car maker Proton after both stakeholders ended in a stalemate after the name selection issue became the bone of contention. Consequently, Proton has decided to take this matter to the London High Court.
Proton terminated the team’s license of using Lotus Racing as a name and vowed to challenge Lotus team boss Tony Fernandes’ intentions of calling his team “Team Lotus” for the 2011 season. The Proton-owned British sports car maker Group Lotus acquired the name from David Hunt after the original team decided to fold in the 1990’s.
Proton is aiming to protect the company and its claim by using all means necessary. “We are the owners of this brand, and will take all necessary steps to protect it”, he said.
After bluntly ignoring Proton’s statements and warnings, Lotus Racing finally responded to Proton’s statement.
“We have 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,” announced Team Chief Executive Riad Asmat.
Riad is confident that the court would permit the team to use the name because Group Lotus recently tried to rescind the trademarks owned by Team Lotus at a hearing but they were unsuccessful.
“When we signed our licence to compete as Lotus Racing, (Group Lotus) 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”, added Asmat.
Due to this intense interaction between the two companies, Lotus Racing has confirmed that a small team sponsorship by Proton, worth about 1.5 percent of the team’s 2010 budget is also coming to an end.
“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,” he added.
Fernandes commented that this is quite funny for him as the team is looking promising and professional and everyone wants a piece in it. However, this is great for the team as all relevant facts will soon be revealed and the shareholders and government will get to see the real story.
It is hard to disagree that Lotus is not doing well this season. After the team’s return to the Formula 1 circuit this year, the team has been struggling. However, there is no doubt that they have been performing much better than their rivals HRT and Virgin and Lotus is expected to survive until the 2011 season. However, HRT and Virgin are facing some problems as the CEO of the FIA Bernie Ecclestone stated that some back running teams would not be included on the Formula 1 grid, as they will not be able to cope up with the sport financially and performance wise. He added that Lotus is not looking too bad and they might survive. Therefore, this means that if the team is able to maintain its performance, the team will find its way on the 2011 grid.
This has been a tough season for the back runners with some new regulations and the new points system, even though it was introduced to help the teams at the back of the grid. The 2010 season was expected to be boring as there were no fuel strategies involved anymore. However, the points system filled the gap as all teams have scored good points with the exception of the 3 new teams. 9 out of 12 teams are now scoring good points and performing to Formula One’s standards and statistically, that is not that bad.
Lotus hopes to return to Formula 1 racing in 2011 once again with the hope that they will have a better car in order to help their drivers to perform at their best.
Tags: