What hasn’t been widely appreciated yet is that having won the rights to use the Lotus name in F1, Genii and the team no longer have sponsorship from Group Lotus, when we were originally told that it would be an ongoing deal.
“We have an agreement today for the name, and as far as the sponsorship agreement is concerned, that has been cleared,” says Lopez. “We are essentially in a situation where they don’t owe us anything anymore. They’re not title sponsor, they are a name provider, they are a partner. We are working with them on a number of things. Honestly, it’s a win/win situation because it clarified a lot of things.”
But wasn’t the whole point of the name change the fact that Group Lotus would continue to pump in funds?
“No, they don’t have to," says Lopez. "They were the title sponsor, and it’s actually been solved in a completely different way. They have and they don’t have to anymore, they’ve done what they have to do, to be very precise.”
The bottom line is that the current Lotus F1 team is in a very similar situation to the Fernandes-era Lotus. It has acquired an attractive brand name which will help it to gain credibility and sell sponsorship, but is getting no financial support – and is thus promoting the Lotus road car division for free.
“That’s essentially it, yeah,” said a smiling Lopez.