Bahar wants return to Indy, GT racing, and LeMans!

[lotus69f2]

Saw this one my daily news search on google for Lotus F1.

From Lotus Press release:

When asked about Lotus’ return to motorsport, Mr Bahar replied; “Lotus will return to motorsport. I believe that this is the perfect platform to showcase our capabilities; racing is part of our heritage and even today the technology in our road cars is derived from racing. We will investigate participation in Indy car series, GT and Le Mans racing amongst other series around the globe to demonstrate the shared technology. F1 is of course another motorsport strand that the Lotus name will again be associated with.”

Complete articles here:

PistonHeads Headlines

Lotus plans motorsport return - Autocar.co.uk



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[wallabyguy]

Isn't it a thing of beauty? I especially like the "honest and authentic" comment. I think the world of MK and what he did to right the ship and this is the perfect follow-up as you can see someone is now in charge that understands the deep heritage and foundation of the company and wants to see growth and development in a direction which supports and reinforces the brands identity.

Bravo, Danny. Bravo.

[LotuShii]

This is definately a good news. But, Bahar is a marketing guy. He would love to promote Lotus brand name by attending as many racings as possible. At this point, I think it will be the best for Lotus to just only focus on F1 to prevent any financial issues (Knock wood)...

[wallabyguy]

Originally Posted by LotuShii

This is definately a good news. But, Bahar is a marketing guy. He would love to promote Lotus brand name by attending as many racings as possible. At this point, I think it will be the best for Lotus to just only focus on F1 to prevent any financial issues (Knock wood)...

While you are very right on Bahars background, its important to remember that Group Lotus will only be lending support to Lotus Team F1 as they are not of common ownership. I don't much, if any, capital flowing from Group Lotus to the F1 team. In fact, I see much the opposite.

Lotus already has a limited involvement in Le Man. Indy Car and GT will be interesting endeavors. I think Lotus will need (and Danny probably already has) a big sponsor lined up to effectively address any significant motorsport effort. Group Lotus alone simply doesn't have the financial where-with-all to invest into racing on a significant level.

[lotus69f2]

Lotus' involvement with the F1 Team - as far as I know - is that the team has an agreement with Proton to use the Lotus name. I would think there would be some kind of financial arrangement to give Proton, and therefore Lotus, some kind of royalty. But I only speculate.

The news that Bahar is looking to LeMans, Indy, and GT to an extent is not news. The Evora Type 124 is stated to be a GT racer with 24 hour racing intended, so there's 2 out of 3.

I don't know why Lotus would want to get involved in Indy. Perhaps Bahar was just listing places other than F1 where Lotus was involved and triumphed. Unless IRL becauses a multi chassis series again - like the CART days - I don't see how Lotus would benefit from involvement.

Rally on the other hand is doable. Don't forget that in addition to being a fantastic Saloon car in racing, the Cortina did very well in Rallying. I'd like to see Proton comission a Lotus version of one of their cars (officially called a Lotus with a type number and everything) and sell it worldwide with a rally team entered in the WRC.

[shay2nak]

They should do Le Mans and the other motorsports instead. The cost of just the F1 team would probably be greater than all the other motorsports combined. Plus, there is only recognition in name in F1. LeMans for example is built off of an existing road car, evora for example, which they have already built.

[fitfan]

as said above- "lotus" is not putting money into F1, if anything... they are getting paid!

that said - they sould focus their in house engineering on LeMans - the "other" pinical of morotsports - thats going to be an awesome arena with Aston martin, ferrari, porsche, corvette, and... lotus? now that GT class is democratized.

...and it would put a very nice crown in Lotus's unfinished history there if they could win LeMans

[cornbeef]

Originally Posted by fitfan

...and it would put a very nice crown in Lotus's unfinished history there if they could win LeMans

as for indy, is the dallara a spec chassis or is it just that no-one else (panoz/gforce, lola, reynard, penske) is building one now. it would be very easy to build an irl chassis and give the teams an option if it's not a spec series and for the fraction of the cost of f1

[lotus69f2]

It appears as though plans are moving forward.


Group Lotus’s new motorsports ambitions will be spearheaded by its newly appointed Director of Motorsport Claudio Berro, who will report directly to CEO Dany Bahar. Both Berro and his boss Bahar are ex-Ferrari men. Berro was previously the Operations Racing Director for the Speedcar Middle-East International Race Series.

Before that, he held positions at Ferrari, Maserati and Fiat as Formula One Team Manager, Director responsible for all sport activities for Ferrari and Maserati (excluding F1), General Manager Maserati Corse and Director of Fiat Group’s Motorsport Activities, and Racing Operations Director for Abarth. So he’s definitely a man with experience.

“Lotus has a peerless motorsport heritage, not just in Formula One, but we have also won in sportscar racing, saloon car racing, world rally championships, Le Mans and the Indy 500. There is no other car company in the world which can lay claim to so many accolades and championships in such a wide variety of motorsport fields, and I am looking forward to re-introducing Lotus to high level motorsport to not only compete and win but also to demonstrate the shared technology between Lotus sportscars and future racing cars,” said Berro.

Of course, Lotus is also in Formula One, except it actually isn’t. The new Lotus F1 Team is actually run by Litespeed in terms of technical expertise.

No additional text, but here is the source: Group Lotus hires new Director of Motorsport




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