We have been invited to visit Lotus Racing’s Formula 1 factory in Hingham, Norfolk where the team’s headquarters is housed and where its Formula 1 cars are built. The trip will take place mid this week in the heart of winter where we will join selected members of the media and take part in a factory tour which will give us more insight on how a Formula 1 team is run and how the race car is developed.
Speaking about the race car, we could be treated to a sneak peak on the developments of next year’s machine. We are also scheduled to carry out interviews with the team’s key personnel and drivers including Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen.
The team did confirm that we will be able to interview both drivers hence it points to the fact that both Jarno and Heikki will be maintained at least for the 2011 season. The team has yet to officially confirm the line-up but principal Tony Fernandes has hinted before that there is no reason to change the line-up.
Hopefully we will also score some juicy details on the possibility of the team keeping its name since Group Lotus is rumored to sponsor the Renault Formula 1 team next year. Are there any questions that you would like us to ask Lotus Racing during the visit? Leave your feedback after the jump as we will try to accommodate.
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sure, the questions are:
1. is there any possibility to plonk in the 2.4 turbocharged v6 indy racing engine into new perdana replacement (after detune and degrade)
2.how many years ahead the lotus tech from other sport cars makers’? what are the techs?
3.lotus hybrid / ev car , can make it from 0-100kmh less than 10 sec? mean for mass market , not sport car
well maybe they are not suitable for lotus racing , just brainstorming
Er, those are questions for Group Lotus, not Lotus Racing.
Paul, he’s confused.
confuse between Lotus Racing and Lotus Group?
a classic example of “barking up the wrong tree”.
Its a common mistake by fans. A survey has shown that fans can’t work out the difference between Lotus Cars, Lotus Engineering,Group Lotus, Lotus Racing, Team Lotus and Lotus Restaurant. LOL
after the first ‘learning year’…what should the fans expect interms of results….and how far will we be from the top??
and plz tell jarno trulli to up his game !
Ask Tony to use the Team Lotus name next season. Let there be the battle of lotuses, if there be any.
wow! snow! love it!
my questions :
1 – what happen with their force india legal issues? such as those allegation involving accusation lotus racing steal 2010 chassis design that was Intellectual property of force india.
2- is Tony have ever approach David Hunt first before turning to proton to get permission to use LOTUS name?
Okay paul hope you get down and drill that tony with some serious questions
Don’t know whether the following actually answers your first question but the British high court has already ordered Force India to pay Aerolab in excess of 1M Euros in damages. Link below
http://www.crash.net/f1/news/162566/1/force_india_ordered_to_pay_1_million_in_damages_to_aerolab.html
While Aerolab has publicly said that it indemnifies Lotus Racing of any wrong doing when Force India first brought to light that it wanted to sue Aerolab for allegedly using Force India’s intellectual rights for doing work for Lotus Racing.
Non-issue I think with regards to Lotus Racing. It’s more to do with Force India and Aerolab. It seems also that Force India has a reputation for not paying suppliers and then using confusing legal tactics to reach a settlement at a much reduced cost than if they had properly paid suppliers.
Also I recall reading in earlier new articles that Force India claimed that in Lotus Racing’s published wind tunnel model’s images that the tyres used were identifiable as belonging to Force India and they claimed copying intellectual properties based on that.
I didn’t know that Force India designed their own tyres. I thought Bridgestone did that! Probably scale model tyres as well.
Aerolab also claimed that the tyres were left at their facility with other things left at Aerolab because Force India did not pay for services. I remember reading this when Aerolab responded to Force India’s statement complaint.
Maybe Aerolab neglected to remove the Force India markings on the Bridgestone tyres and Force India used that to pounce on them.
There’s report saying that the redbull package they planned to used are outdated, how do they respond to that? any hint for figure & improvement for the overall package.
Tell hem to kick other team’s asses next season!
Found this:
“Equally unexpected was the confirmation that the technology will not simply be Red Bulls 2011 RB7 design. But a part Lotus designed gearbox. Silvi Schaumloeffel from Lotus exclusively telling ScarbsF1.com “It’s a bespoke gearbox for us and we have been in contact for several weeks and have been able to progress the design”. Thus the 2011 Lotus already has the Gearbox design considered as part of its initial philosophy.”
Full article on ScarbsF1 site
http://tinyurl.com/24zbov9
Sounds like they’re saying that they have their own design requirements and the Redbull package is able to meet that.
1. any battle between the lotuses, anyone would end-up dressing like a grid girl?? tony or bahar??
well done Paul being invited for the tour….. fully paid holiday …. hehe
you have done great …. getting the due recognition and going from strength to strength
a big round of applause to Paul and the followers of paultan.org
Thanks for the encouraging words! :) Harve our “F1 man” will be going, not me. Sadly, none of our overseas working trips have been holidays. We fly there, get rushed through a packed schedule as the inviting company wants to maximize their return on investment with the plane tickets and accomodation, and get sent back as soon as we can. Most of the time the time we spend in the plane is more than the time we actually spend on foot in a foreign land. For example, UK – our passports will say we have been in the UK, but did we actually VISIT UK? No… we only see the country through the windows of transport vans/buses as we go from location to location. It’s all purely work unfortunately!
did harve fly into norwich or heathrow? if the latter’s the case i bet he’d have the chance to at least spend a few hours on the road on the way to hingham
He’s only flying on Wednesday. Flying Air Asia X to London Stansted.
will he flying back to KL with branson in flight as stewardess?
hehe
Going forward, what is Lotus Racing doing to improve reliability issues? I remembered one of the driver (can’t remember which one) did not finish quite a number of race.
What are the target and plans for next year. Can we expect regular top ten finish? Or can the engineers work out something in terms of technicality just like what Adrian Newey is doing in Red Bulls to give the team and driver a car that’s capable of challenging the championship?
What about personnel. As much as I know, the team have grown from less than 5 personnel to quite a number of people. The question is, do you have the right/best person in key areas? Just like Red Bull having Adrian Newey.
I think that’s why they’re switching to RedBull gearbox and hydraulics for next season. Sneak peak of this would be nice :)
I would like to point out that the first week of December is not the heart of WINTER
It IS in Britain! :) :) Even in summer it felt like winter :)
no. unless your definition of winter is when temperature drop below 15° C at night and windy and so on
It’s already snowing in UK. So it is somewhat ‘winter’ now… this year expected to be worse than last year.
what’s the plan for our own malaysia’s wind tunnel? is it going to be happen very soon?
ask for free merchandise for paultan reader..
Paul Tan. kilang lotus f1 yg ni ker? 52°34’48.25″N 0°59’54.70″E
Spot on based from the actually address of Lotus Racing
1 Malaysia Racing Team (UK) Ltd.
Hingham Industrial Estate Ironside Way,
Hingham, Norfolk NR9 4LF
Can Lotus come with own KERS system for next season F1?