Saturday, 4th April 2020 |
19:21 PM BST
Fernando Alonso delivered a winning performance in the Malaysian Grand Prix last weekend, and despite both Alonso and Team Principal Stefano Domenicali saying “there’s still plenty of work to do”, Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo was keen to mark the occasion with a gift.
According to the results of an online personality test I took a few weeks ago, I am 100 percent male and zero percent female.
My chromosomes would beg to differ.
It is three years since I first visited Westfield’s Kingswinford factory; a trip that made such an impression that it would ultimately lead to me working there. Yet just over 12 months later, my faith was lost and exit swift.
The long-running saga between Group Lotus and Tony Fernandes’ 1Malaysia Racing Team has been brought to an amicable conclusion. In a joint-statement released earlier this morning, Proton, Group Lotus, 1Malaysia Racing Team and its owner Tony Fernandes announced that the legal dispute in the English Courts relating to the “LOTUS” and “TEAM LOTUS” brands had now ended with the parties agreeing settlement terms earlier this month.
With Malaysian-born Tony Fernandes as its new owner, it was only a matter of time before Caterham Cars set up a permanent residence in India – you see, despite being born in Kuala Lumpur, the Air Asia and Team Lotus boss’ late father was Indian.
Today registered another tragic loss in the world of motorsport. Marco Simoncelli was a remarkable motorbike racer; he was also a son and a lover.
But the loss of this prodigious talent has been overshadowed by the disdainful reaction of some within the online world. Numerous editors, bloggers and forum users rushed to upload links to video footage of the accident and photos of the reaction of Marco’s family & girlfriend. What purpose does this serve?
Following our recent interview with Caterham’s CEO, Ansar Ali – Behind the scenes at Caterham Cars – the company has now confirmed details of its programme to develop the next iconic Caterham model.
I have been sitting on some news about Caterham during the past few weeks, as we waited on some of the moves to play out. And it’s been fascinating to watch this minnow of the car industry become such a talking point on the global stage.
The legendary Team Lotus name has returned to Formula One™ for the 2011 season with its new chassis, the TL128. It’s been a long while in the making and we’re told it’s very different from last year’s car, the TL127. “With last year’s car and especially the ¬first half of the season it was just an exercise in survival, whereas from the middle of last year it was about building the team up – that’s when we started working on this car.”, says Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer.
This is steadily becoming the biggest motorsport pis**ng contest of recent times and clearly goes well beyond the bounds of gentlemanly competition… Welcome to Round 3 of the Lotus-vs-Lotus spat.
We were already aware that Group Lotus were in discussions with Genii Capital – majority shareholders in the Renault F1 team – about bringing a tie-up for 2011. The announcement was due at the final grand prix in Abu Dhabi, but there’s been much lobbying and negotiation in the background prior to this morning’s announcement.
The FIA’s official entry list for the 2011 Formula One championship was revealed this afternoon, with the most significant news being that the FIA has accepted the change of name of Tony Fernandes’ 1 Malaysia Racing Team from Lotus Racing to Team Lotus.
We seem to be writing a lot about Lotus this year, but then they’ve been making the headlines – usually for all the right reasons. Up until recently we were praising Lotus for the incredible albeit pricey Evora, their collaboration with 1 Malaysia Racing Team in F1 (licensed under the name ‘Lotus Racing’) and then the nostalgic return of the Lotus-brand to Indy Car Racing, run by KV Racing and driven by ex-F1 pilot Takuma Sato. 2010 looked like being a pretty good year for Lotus fans.
And then it all went horribly wrong.
