Renault F1 team changes its official name to Lotus Renault GP
Renault F1 team, a team that won two world championships with the help of one of the most dominant pair in Formula 1 history have proved that they were not in the sport to play games. Flavio Briatore and Fernando Alonso ruled the sport for two years consecutively
and it seemed that they were unstoppable in 2005 and 2006.
After a legendary run, Renault suffered a vital downfall and it seemed that they might not be able to recover from this deficit but since Lotus has joined hands with Renault, it seems that the team still has some hope left.
Renault was left with just 25% of the total shareholding in the team this year as they decided to sell the remainder of their shares to a private investment group by the name of Genii Capital. These shares will be taken by Lotus Cars that are owned by Proton.
This is quite a legendary moment for Lotus as there will be two teams running 2011 with the name “Lotus”.
“For 2011, the Lotus Renault GP cars will race in a new interpretation of the iconic black and gold colours that were last used when Lotus and Renault joined forces in the 1980s,” according to team Renault’s statement.
Group Lotus decided to leave Team Lotus but gave them the rights to keep the name.
The chief executive officer of Group Lotus, Dany Bahar was quite pleased with the decision that they made and believes that their future is pretty secure with Renault by their side.
“We're well aware that there has been a lot of controversy around the usage of our brand in F1 and I'm delighted to be able to formally clarify our position once and for all: we are Lotus and we are back,” said Dany.
Lotus Racing will be renamed as Team Lotus for 2011 and it would be interesting to see how the two Lotus teams compete against each other and perform in 2011. Both of the teams have vowed to give their best next season and hopefully perform more competitively.
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