Team Lotus Allowed to Keep Name at BetLM

Team Lotus Allowed to Keep Name

Heikki Kovalainen dri­ves his Lotus dur­ing last Sunday’s Span­ish GP

For­mula 1’s Team Lotus has been told by a judge they can con­tinue to oper­ate and race under that name.

The High Court deci­sion con­firms the team headed by Tony Fer­nan­des as the owner of the Team Lotus badge.

Group Lotus, which spon­sors the Renault team, retains the right to use the Lotus mar­que on its road cars, and in F1 if it chose to enter its own team.

But Group Lotus says it will appeal against the rul­ing that two teams could run in F1 with Lotus in their name.

Group Lotus is con­cerned this aspect of the judg­ment sim­ply causes con­fu­sion in the eyes of spec­ta­tors and the wider public.

Fer­nan­des bought the rights to the Team Lotus name from busi­ness­man David Hunt — brother of 1976 world cham­pion James Hunt — before the start of the 2011 season.

The team boss was keen to stress the links between his new team and the his­toric Lotus, which was founded by Colin Chap­man and won a series of six dri­vers’ titles and seven con­struc­tors’ cham­pi­onships through the 1960s and ‘70s.

But a dis­pute over the Lotus name began when Lotus Cars, who are owned by Malaysian man­u­fac­turer Pro­ton, agreed a spon­sor­ship deal with the Renault team for 2011 and as a result wanted their team to be referred to as “Lotus Renault”.

The mat­ter was also com­pli­cated by the details of a deal Fer­nan­des had struck with Lotus Cars to use the Lotus name in F1.

And the saga deep­ened when both Team Lotus and the Renault team decided to race in the iconic black and gold Lotus liv­ery — only for Fer­nan­des to ulti­mately decide to stick with the orig­i­nal green and yel­low colours.

The com­plex issues of the so-called “Lotus ver­sus Lotus” row was finally resolved in London’s High Court, with both sides count­ing the ver­dict as a victory.

In short, Team Lotus were allowed to con­tinue run­ning under that name while Group Lotus will keep the black and gold livery.

The judge also ruled that Group Lotus was enti­tled to end that licence agree­ment in 2010 and that, con­se­quently, Team Lotus must pay dam­ages for breach­ing that agreement.

“We are all pleased that it has been clar­i­fied that we are the right­ful own­ers of Team Lotus,” said Fernandes.

“We have always been con­fi­dent that the fac­tual evi­dence we pre­sented would lead to this deci­sion and today’s judg­ment con­firms that belief.

“We are delighted that we can turn our atten­tion to ensur­ing suc­cess for Cater­ham Cars on the road and Team Lotus on track.

“Now our main aim is to add more his­tory to the incred­i­ble story of Team Lotus over the com­ing months and years.”

Group Lotus head of legal, Sarah Price, com­mented: “Group Lotus is pleased that its right to race under the Lotus name in F1 has been upheld and that the defen­dants’ attempts to stop that have failed.

“The ongo­ing dis­pute with Team Lotus and asso­ci­ated com­pa­nies has been a cause for con­cern for all at Group Lotus.

“Despite the detailed judg­ment there are issues which still require clar­i­fi­ca­tion and we remain com­mit­ted to obtain­ing this much-needed clar­ity for the many fans of the Lotus mar­que — we are extremely grate­ful for their con­tin­ued support.

“The deci­sion to appeal has not been taken lightly.”

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• Gal­lagher Ready to Fight for Team Canada

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