Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone at LotusRacing!
Thank you for all your fantastic support throughout the year andhere's to 2011! Have a fantastic winter break, hope you have agreat celebration and thank you for being the best fans in thewhole world!
LotusRacing boss Tony Fernandes has called for an end to the publicmud-slinging in the fight over the future of the brand in Formula 1,after he moved to dismiss any suggestion he priced out Dany Bahar froma tie-up deal.
Bahar, the Group Lotus CEO, claimed at a media lunch in London onWednesday that he had tried to do a deal with Fernandes to tie-up GroupLotus and the F1 team but was forced to abandon the move when hesuggested that Renault offered him a similar deal for a third of theprice.
Fernandes has strongly denied Bahar's claims, however, and says thetime has come to stop accusations being thrown about in public.
"There was no such thing as an offer," Fernandes told AUTOSPORTabout Bahar's claims. "There is an understanding that Lotus'sinvolvement with Renault is worth £20 million, which would thereforemean that I was seeking £60 million - which is a complete fabrication.
"We never got past an initial dinner meeting. Dany Bahar and Riad Asmat met and that was it. No offers were ever exchanged.
"We were very open to equity sharing, working together and othercombinations. We wanted it to work for the good of the Lotus brand -and it made sense to combine.
"I can state categorically that there is no way we were three timesmore expensive. Dany got it into his mind that Mike Gascoyne was oldschool and that it would take a long, long time for Lotus Racing to bea challenger at the top.
"I think with the package we have got, towards the end of nextseason we will be not very far away from Renault F1 and if he had beena bit more patient, given it a bit more time and been open to news thena super collaboration could have happened."
Fernandes has said several times that his biggest fear in the fightover the future of the Lotus name was in the brand getting damaged -which is why he now wants the matter to get sorted out behind closeddoors.
"It has got too much," he said. "Over the last few days I have hadattacks from Dany Bahar, Eric Boullier and Gerard Lopez. Personally Ithink it has got a little bit out of hand and a lot of it is fabricated.
"How Eric Boullier can say we have fooled fans - I think that is aninsult to fans. Fans will make up their own mind. If we are not up tothe mark they will not give us any support. You cannot fool anyone.
"This will be my last statement on the matter and hopefully some common sense will arise.
"All we wanted to do was bring Lotus back to racing and build a goodrelationship with Group Lotus and I think that would have been the bestsolution for everyone.
"We never wanted to bring these matters up in public, and when it(Lotus sponsoring Renault) came out we kept a very low profile about it.
"But there have been so many accusations that we have had to defendour position. If Group Lotus value the brand then we should try andfind a solution to this. We are open to that."
来源： http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88715
Team Lotus End of 2010 Season www.youtube.com
A video from the very heart of the team, the round up of our first year in Formula One™ and the steps we will be making to succeed in the future. A special thank you to all of you who have followed and supported us this year, you have been absolutely amazing, and we cannot wait to race and make step
Team Lotus will have its 2011 car at the opening test in Valencia but is not planning a traditional "launch", a spokesperson said on Monday.
After a visit to the team's Hingham headquarters last week, owner and boss Tony Fernandes said the new car "is looking great" and "much slicker" than its predecessor, but warned that Lotus "won't do a conventional launch".
A spokesman clarified to Dutch website f1today.nl that Team Lotus will be giving the new car its debut at Valencia early next month, along with majority of the other teams.
"We will present the car there," he said.
The new Lotus comes with high hopes and will run a Renault engine and a Red Bull gearbox as the team aims for its first points this season. 2010 rivals HRT and Virgin will not bring their 2011 cars to the first test, electing to take more time to prepare them away from the track.
Meanwhile, after an HRT spokeswoman confirmed that the Spanish has left the Formula One Teams Association due to "politics", Fernandes said on his Twitter account on Monday that Team Lotus will not be following suit.
"We think FOTA is very good and very important," he said.
楼主
发表于 17-12-2010 12:41 AM
LotusRacing boss Tony Fernandes has called for an end to the publicmud-slinging in the fight over the future of the brand in Formula 1,after he moved to dismiss any suggestion he priced out Dany Bahar froma tie-up deal.
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