Is that a Lotus… Or a Lotus?

Lotus is an old and storied name in F1, it’s history at the top level goes back to 1958, they raced out of Kettering Hall untill insolvency caught up with them at the end of 1994. During that final season they went through a series of pay drivers partnering Johnny Herbert for most of the year and for the first time in 36 years failed to score a single point during the season.

It was sad to see such a famous name missing from the pitlane when 1995 opened. In ’92 and ’93 Team Lotus used Cosworth engines. The company sent most of the customer engine team to enjoy a couple of late nights in Norfolk getting cars ready. It was all very rushed and last minute, in the pre-season there is never enough time and 1992 was no different.

The first time the Cosworth powered Lotus-102D turned a wheel was at Snetterton with Johnny Herbert driving. It was just a quick shakedown on a very cold morning in Norfolk, we were just swimming in the glamour of F1!

Note: at some time before Kyalami we did run a car on the test track at the Lotus cars factory at Hethel. I think it was with the second car (Mika Hakkinen) the following day, but it could have been the day before we ran at Snetteron to do a systems check.

Anyway, after his first couple of laps Johnny Herbert returned to the garage, opened his visor, looked at the gaggle of Cosworth guys and said “It’s OK, but could we put the Juddies [Judd Engines from the previous year] back in?”

And 10 days later Johnny Herbert took the same car to 6th place in the opening race of the year at Kyalami in South Africa.

Fast forward to today and we are in the heart of the 2010/11 silly season. Todays’ big announcement was there will be two “Lotus” teams entered next year after Lotus Cars purchased a part of what was once the Renault GP team. This will be called “Lotus-Renault” and unveiled a really pretty and very retro black and gold car today.

Last year the Mike Gascoine led “Lotus Racing” joined the grid, they had a decent year and were clearly the best of three new teams. Never scored any points, but were constantly ahead of Virgin and HRT (rarely has a team had a worse name).

So we have “Lotus Renault” and “Lotus Racing”… And neither team is related to the other. To further the confusion both teams are looking to run some form of black/gold livery.

It now gets a little more complex. The original GP team from 1958 to ’94 was known as “Team Lotus”, the label was owned by David Hunt (F1 champions Jame’s brother) after the original GP team went out of business.

And one more thing, both are Malaysian owned.

He finally sold the rights to the name a few months ago to the owner of what was called “Lotus Racing” (the Mike Gascoine led new team for last year).

So next year we will have two teams called Lotus, with cars that are planned to have similar colour schemes on the grid next year… Oh yeah, that’s not going to confuse people. Should all this come to fruition it’s the commentators and journalists I feel sorry for. On Speed TV in the US Bob Varsha had trouble spotting Red Bull from Toro Rosso at times last year, and they ran different colours.

It’s good to see Lotus cars back in F1, the Lotus-Renault partnership has some history with Ayrton Senna getting his first ever wins in one.