Lotus: back where it belongs?
The Lotus name returns to Formula 1 this year. Neither Tony Fernandes nor Mike Gascoyne are pretending this new team has any direct link to Colin Chapman’s great squad, but still the use of the Lotus badge is seen as controversial in some quarters. After all, the legacy is a huge one to live up to and anyone who goes racing under the auspices of “Britain’s Ferrari” (as Johnny Herbert so correctly describes the marque) accepts great responsibility.
We have our own reservations about the use of the name by an all-new squad, but would those most closely associated with Team Lotus feel the same? We asked Paul Fearnley to find out as part of our celebration of Lotus in F1, the centrepiece of the March issue of Motor Sport. The verdict? Well, read the magazine to find out!
As part of the Lotus special, editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck recounts his personal memories of Team Lotus and explains why the team means so much to him. Meanwhile, lucky Andrew Frankel gets behind the wheel of the F1 car that first inspired him: Mario Andretti’s Type 79, the ‘wing’ car that stormed the 1978 World Championship. And Rob Widdows meets Fernandes and Gascoyne to hear about the revival of Lotus in F1.
From a personal point of view, this issue felt like a long time coming. In fact, it seemed as if it would never end! Hopefully that should come across when you read it (in a good way) because there is plenty between the covers.
Highlights include more from the 1970s, as dep ed Gordon Cruickshank witnesses a very cool reunion: Andy Rouse and the British Leyland Jaguar XJC tin-topper, the epitome of that romantic motor racing standard – the glorious failure! Then it’s that man Frankel again as we remember the Tour of Britain, which attracted stars from stage and track – plus the odd Radio 1 DJ…
Finally, I must mention Simon Taylor’s latest ‘Lunch with’ interview. He met March co-founder Robin Herd for what would prove to be an entertaining bout of reminiscence, but in a venue with a twist. You’ll find out what I mean on page 74.
The April issue is already well underway, and so far it’s coming together nicely. In fact, I’d better get back to it! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the March edition and do let us know your thoughts on the return of Lotus to F1.
Filed under: Formula 1, Historic Racing, Notes from the Editor
Tags: Andrew Frankel, Andy Rouse, Colin Chapman, Ferrari, Gordon Cruickshank, Jaguar, Johnny Herbert, Leyland, Lotus, Mario Andretti, Mike Gascoyne, Nigel Roebuck, Paul Fearnley, Rob Widdows, Robin Herd, Simon Taylor, Tony Fernandes, Tour of Britain
jimclark:
February 4th, 2010 5:20pm
Without Colin…
http://www.lotuscarsusawebstore.com/ekmps/shops/lotuscarsusa/images/sew-on.jpg
…will never be the same…
Paal Hanson:
February 4th, 2010 5:53pm
It’s for sure with mixed feelings that I am “going” into the 2010 F1 season, and the new Team Lotus!
Having been a fan since about 1968, at the tender age of 9 years old, Lotus was always my reason for getting into F1. Therefore 1982 was such a terrible year, and the years to follow, well it kind of never got back to the glory days. So of course the new Team Lotus has so much to live up to, and so much to loose.
Still I welcome the new Team Lotus into F1, I hope and pray that Gascoyne and Fernandez will make it, and that Lotus will again get back into the winners circle, and I will be the first to cheer them on.
Who knows, maybe Colin will have something to smile about, and chuck his cap in the air about again, wherever he is! He came across as someone who thrived with any challenge, and I am sure that whichever heaven he resides in, he is smiling at the challenge facing the new Team Lotus!
Mario Carneiro Neto:
February 4th, 2010 6:18pm
Weird to see features of the March issue when my Februar issue has yet to arrive in my mailbox in the US… It’s on the newsstands already, which kind of makes me wonder as a subscriber what the advantage is…
marty l:
February 4th, 2010 8:26pm
Mario, same here, the February issued arrived a few days ago in NY. the only benefit is the subscription savings. It was suppose to be more timely with the switch to printing in the US. We can hope for improvement.
Tony Geran:
February 4th, 2010 11:41pm
Mario and Marty
Your beef should be with the US Postal Service. In Australia I get my subscription copy within a week of it hitting the stands in the UK. In fact Motor Sport is much more efficient than a weekly English glossy magazine I used to subscribe to in getting its issues out.
Looking forward to the Lotus issue my childhood memories are of the real Team Lotus racing in the Tasman series here in the sixties. My favourite car being the 33 that Clark campaigned here in 1967.
Mario Carneiro Neto:
February 5th, 2010 12:01am
No, apparently the US distributor is at fault here, for being disorganized. I had troubles with my December issue (never arrived), then the January issue arrived very late. I e-mailed the proper channels and they have said the distributor is a mess right now.
That said, I’ve seen the Feb. issue in Bookstores for a while now, but mine isn’t here yet..
Michael Dodd:
February 5th, 2010 9:04am
I live in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus whjch, because of the stupid UN/EU embargo, results in all mail passing through Istanbul, Turkey, where about 40% of attractive-lookig packages get “mislaid”. My Motor Sport, in its transparent packet,occasionally falls victim, but the phenomenon is currently being investigated by the Ankara Postal Authority, no less.
However, when I realise that my Motor Sport has gone walkabout, I contact a splendid gentleman by the name of Fred Milln in the Motor Sport Office in the UK.
Fred sends me a duplicate copy in a plain brown envelope which arrives within 10 days without fail.
There’s a moral to this tale somewhere and I remain a satisfied overseas subscriber.
Tim Barrett:
February 5th, 2010 9:41am
I agree with Paal Hanson, having followed Lotus since the early 1960s and Jim Clark in particular. Good to see the name back though and Gascoyne is well suited to the task of protecting the heritage.
In the last few months the magazine has been on the news stands 3 or 4 days before it arrives in the post here in rural Norfolk (just down the road from the Lotus factory).
Ed Foster:
February 5th, 2010 9:59am
Dear Michael,
I am sad to say that ’splendid gentleman’ Fred Milln has left, but he has been replaced by a splendid lady by the name of Cara Borton!
If you do have any issues with copies arriving then do give her a call.
All the best
EF
Kenny:
February 5th, 2010 10:41am
The current Lotus F1 team uses the name because the owners have the “right” to use it (I think…). That is the only connection they have with the previous Team Lotus. They cannot (or do not) even use the Lotus Badge…they have come up a logo like you would see on the side of a moving van or a rent-a-truck.
I wish the new team every success, but their use of the Lotus name is ludicrous.
kjd
John Saviano:
February 5th, 2010 1:21pm
As a long time Lotus fan I was of course disappointed when Team Lotus ended their F1 involvement, though the decline had been sad to witness. I would feel better about this new team if it had a clearly defined link to Group Lotus.
Adrian Muldrew:
February 5th, 2010 2:12pm
I am absolutely drooling at the prospect of the latest Motor Sport. What a wonderful cover, with a superb shot of old Black Beauty, the 79, the car that made me fall in love with F1 at twelve years old. I’d followed the sport for a little while beforehand, starting really with the dramatic season of 1976, but it was this extraordinary machine, and the endeavours of Mario and poor Ronnie in it, that finally bowled me over completely. I still believe that it is the most beautiful F1 car ever built (though it didn’t look quite as good in its Martini colours in 1979 – but then, when you tamper with aesthetic perfection, any result is going to be disappointing.)
That was an amazing period for F1 car design, in which the outlandish gifts of such as Chapman were given free rein and therefore in which those gifts were always going to shine, certainly in terms of their products capturing one’s attention, and also, when they got it right, in terms of results on the circuit. Even when they got it wrong, their new creations would still stir us. I vividly remember being stunned at the first glimpse of Black Beauty’s successor, the 80. A complete lemon as it transpired, we all know, and no looker compared to its predecessor (what could be?), but wow, when we first saw its radical features (that low rear wing!), our breath was taken away.
Every F1 winter used to be like that. We would keenly anticipate Motoring News on Wednesday and Autosport on Thursday to see the first shots of a new car, usually “launched” against the glamorous backdrop of a brick wall in Reading or somewhere, but you didn’t need fake glitz when the cars themselves had real charisma. And Colin Chapman’s latest Lotus was always the one we anticipated most keenly of all. His launch backdrops were swankier too. No brick walls for Lotus – they had the front porch at Ketteringham Hall!
All this comes to mind when I try and compare it with the extent to which this week’s images from Valencia have stirred me. Yes, it’s been a bit of a novelty to see the first shots of Alonso’s sky blue helmet peering out of Ferrari red, or Button’s lid (red, white and blue again, I notice) in the new McLaren, or Schumacher returning as Brawn white morphs into Mercedes silver, or the new Renault livery (it’s a ‘98 Jordan, isn’t it?) etc etc.
But it’s nothing like marvelling at the wonderful variety of designs which greeted us in that winter of ‘78/79, or seeing the first shots of Mansell and Piquet in the FW11 at Rio testing in ‘86 and thinking it was not only proving quicker than the FW10, but was a lot prettier too.
The thing was, the rules allowed full scope to a Chapman or a Murray back then. If they allowed for something as weirdly radical as a Brabham BT48, they also allowed a team to get back in the hunt quickly if “weirdly radical” proved to be “spectacularly
awful” as well, as Murray showed when the BT48 was replaced by the successful (but still distinctive) BT49.
If the rules had been as restictive back then as they have been over the last decade or more, Lotus might have carried on as champions after 1978 (on the admittedly big assumption that the rules would have allowed Type 79 in the first place) because Chapman wouldn’t have been allowed to go down the blind alley of the Type 80 and everybody else would just have been able to make incremental moves towards the 79’s performance levels rather than leapfrog straight past it.
That’s one of the reasons why Ferrari was able to go on and on having monotonous success for so long in more recent seasons and why, last season apart (when, by an amazing coincidence, the design rules had been shaken up), no team for years has been able to come from nowhere and break into the established top two or three.
(Another point here – there’s nothing new about the likes of Ferrari having a massive budget, but thirty years ago less well-financed teams were able to get ahead through innovation. Freeing up the technical side doesn’t hinder smaller teams, it helps them)
But would Chapman have preferred endless victories, just tinkering at the edges of the same package, to the roller-coaster of success followed by glorious failure which his pursuit of the radical always ensured? I doubt it. I suspect he would have quickly become bored.
So no, the new Lotus team can never be the real deal, but nor could any team in these days of Mosleyite same-old same-old, even if it was called Team Lotus, based at Hethel and had a principal called Colin Chapman. So bearing that in mind, I wish the new Lotus boys the very best of British, or perhaps in due course Malaysian, luck.
Steven Roy:
February 5th, 2010 6:23pm
Delighted to see the magazine doing a Lotus issue. Like many others I became an instant Lotus fan when I first became interested sport. Much as I like Mike Gascoyne’s approach which gives me a natural sympathy for that team they are not Lotus. I refuse to even call them Lotus and will continue to call them Notus(Not Lotus).
Rich Ambroson:
February 6th, 2010 2:11am
Steven Roy has a good moniker for the new team. Thank you, Steven. I can’t consider this team to be “Lotus” either.
Kenny:
February 6th, 2010 5:41am
Brilliant, Steven.
Alex Birnie:
February 7th, 2010 2:33am
The “New” Lotus will never be as good as the “OLD” Lotus. Fortunately,Classic Team Lotus show race fans, the “Beautiful” “OLD” Lotus Formular cars!!!
PeteH:
February 7th, 2010 10:10am
Nu-Lotus is as close to the original as Mercedes is to Tyrrell.
Martin Baldock:
February 8th, 2010 10:26am
It is good to have the name back, and equally good to have some new blood on the grid this year.
My first encounter with F1 was during the 1960’s when it was a very different game. The cars were simply very beautiful, Lotus in particular, and Jim Clark my boyhood hero. It’s all very different these days but F1 is in my bloodstream and I’m intrigued to see how the newbies perform
Chris Scholfield:
February 8th, 2010 6:41pm
I’m not sure why folk are getting upset about the use of the Lotus name. McLaren doesn’t seem to have suffered too much from not being “Dennis GP” and Ferrari wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for the injection of Fiat money at one stage. Neither Bruce McLaren or Enzo Ferrari are around any more but that hasn’t spoilt the continuity. Don’t forget there is Proton/Malaysian money in both the road cars and the Formula One team, so I would have thought that was a good enough reason to retain the Lotus name
Simon Parsons:
February 8th, 2010 8:20pm
I think Colin Chapman may have been quite amused by the irony of the new ‘F1 Lotus’, after all, I remember him being accused of ruining Grand Prix racing by introducing sponsorship to his cars, now people are saying that the name Lotus could be ruined by another outside influence. I wait with interest for the racing results throughout the season, but suspect that if they do well it will be ‘Come on the Greens! Good old Lotus !! and if they do badly – Well, of course, they were never really Lotus at all.
Onyx:
February 9th, 2010 11:01pm
Er, anyone seen the spy shot of the new Lotus!
Dont think there’s much chance of adding to the Lotus victory total with this monstrosity!I’m convinced that all the new teams are going to be terrible.They seem way out of their depth.How can they hope to compete with the big boys?!
Mario Carneiro Neto:
February 10th, 2010 1:56am
I saw it.. It wasn’t very remarkable…
Mario Carneiro Neto:
February 10th, 2010 2:40am
I don’t think Virgin is going to be a terrible team. I thought their car looked great, and they seem to have everything in order. USf1 and Campos are the two that, for now, are worrying…
john read:
February 10th, 2010 4:10am
If we are wondering about names, what about BMW Sauber……..with Ferrari engines??? Somebody please tell me I am wrong, or if not, tell me why the name is correct.
Tony Geran:
February 10th, 2010 4:40am
Yes the Notus looks plain ugly, looks like a big overgrown GP2 car. John the reason that Sauber is still BMW Sauber is that the name change has to be approved by all the other signatories to the Concorde agreement and they won’t all meet until they’re at Bahrain…. Stupid but they’re the rules
john read:
February 10th, 2010 5:53am
Thanks Tony. Hopefully they will all sign, and the name will be Sauber Ferrari or something similar. In view of the new Lotus name, maybe Peter Sauber may prefer to aquire the rights to, um Bugatti, or Auto Union or something more recent like Brabham? I could go on, but this would just become sillier. Anyway, best wishes to the new Lotus team.
CasinoSquare:
February 10th, 2010 7:57pm
For those of you moaning, there are enough ex-Lotus employees working at the factory in Hingham to make a defined link to the heritage for me. I believe there are a few who even worked for the F1 team in days past.
Good luck to them and all the staff working long hours to get these new projects going.
David Forward:
February 10th, 2010 9:23pm
I hope Lotus have a successful campaign this year with some good results.
john read:
February 11th, 2010 12:27am
I have not seen the new Lotus (or the new Motorsport issue), but was there any thought given to painting it black and gold? Now that would get them some attention!
Kenny:
February 15th, 2010 12:46pm
I have to eat a little crow now. The launch demonstrated that, while this team is certainly not the Team Lotus of old, it is a lot closer than I thought. They appear to have the full backing of Lotus Cars, the Chapman family, and the old “Lotus Community” in general. And the livery is very well done. Good luck to them.
piero dessimone:
February 15th, 2010 3:24pm
I like the idea of the Lotus name being back on the F1 grid. The colours of the new car are very nice. But as already mentioned by somebody else the car looks like an enlarged GP2 car. Hopefully I will be proven wrong.