Malaysia’s involvement in Formula 1 is now greater than ever. It first started off with Petronas’ engagement with the Sauber Formula 1 back in 1995 and then the hosting of the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang in 1999. That has been going on for the past 12 years.
Now Petronas is the title sponsor of Mercedes GP, a team which 7-times World Champion Michael Schumacher calls home and a team that has won the Driver’s and Constructor’s Championships in 2009, when it was known as Brawn GP. Our involvement has increased with the birth of Team Lotus (previously known as Lotus Racing) which is run Air Asia’s boss Tony Fernandes under the 1Malaysia Racing Team. This team is officially classified by the FIA as a Malaysian team.
You would also know that the Renault Formula 1 team is now known as Lotus Renault, backed by Group Lotus. This came after a fallout between Team Lotus, Group Lotus and it’s parent company Proton. This team has no relations to Fernandes’ Team Lotus, only having the brand name in common.
The use of the name Team Lotus is still in jeopardy for Fernandes, pending a decision from the British High Court on the matter and no one has any idea when the decision will be announced. For now the team is allowed to use Team Lotus as its official name in Formula 1 after the FIA gave the green light.
The team recently invited us to visit its factory in Norfolk, UK and we managed to get behind doors that are usually closed to the public or journalist. Putting the issue between Team Lotus, Group Lotus and Proton aside, you can check out our full factory tour report after the jump.
With temperatures breaching the -4 degrees celsius mark, we were brought to the team’s factory cum headquarters in Norfolk just hours after enduring a 13-hour flight. It was interesting to see how a Formula 1 factory looks like from the inside and how a team that started off with just four members turned out after one season in Formula 1.
The factory isn’t huge, but definitely enough to run a Formula 1 outfit. The factory looked fully operational, occupied by staff that are busy preparing for the team’s second campaign in 2011. To be honest, before I got into the factory I had a pre-conception that the folks over in a Formula 1 team would be less humorous and more strict. The word fancy popped up at times too.
However, this wasn’t the case for Team Lotus. There was a sense of humbleness in the factory. After getting to grips with the fact that we were at a Formula 1 factory and a quick brief, we were brought behind the doors that were marked with the words “restricted access”. It first started off with having a closer look at the T127 race car which at the time were being prepped up for upcoming road shows since the 2010 season is already over. The car was parked in one of three bays, with one housing a mock chassis of the 2011 car, no access here of course! It was there to enable Heikki to carry out his seat fitting.
I even got the chance to fit into the cockpit! Getting in was a chore but I managed to do it. It’s like sliding into a perfect fit shoe. Once I was in, it felt pretty good. The seating angle was comfortable. Unfortunately my brief “seating” ended with an explanation of how the steering wheel works and not a with chance of firing the engine and driving off with it.
The steering wheel is a very expensive piece of machinery, costing thousands of Pounds. It has the right to be expensive as it is the connection between the driver and the car. The driver can control various functions and settings including the differential, brake bias, rev limit, clutch and more. If the driver is thirsty during the race and needs to replenish fluids, all he needs to do is hit a button on the steering wheel! The driver can also communicate with the team’s pit wall via the steering wheel.
Moving on with the tour, there are three rooms which are specifically for the gearbox, sub-assembly and the hydraulics. The gearbox room was already occupied with the latest gearboxes from Red Bull Technologies, something new for the 2011 car, along with the Renault engine instead of Cosworth’s.
No Formula 1 factory is complete without being able to test components that have been raced. Team Lotus has this facility and this allows to team to figure out the lifespan of a particular component and decide if it should be retired. The most important thing I have learned about the team’s factory is that, it is now fully capable of designing and manufacturing a Formula 1 monocoque chassis and other vital components. However certain things have to be outsourced, such as the engine, the transmission, brakes, fuel tank and so on.
The team has a comprehensive design team complemented by a carbon fiber unit which specializes in manufacturing the chassis and other parts like the front and rear wings. There is also something called an autoclave which is pretty much a giant baking machine for composite materials. The factory also has machines that can produce lightweight metal parts such as bespoke pedals, brackets and so on.
A paint booth as well as a 1.2 million Pound super computer round up the major facilities in the Norfolk factory. The compound is also home to the Air Asia GP2 which will start its campaign next year and it will act as a staff and driver feeder for the larger Formula 1 team.
Being based in the UK allows the team to have easier access into other parts of the sport, since most of the races are held in Europe, same case for the man power too. Speaking of man power, the team which started off with just four is now 220 strong.
It would be very difficult to mentally consider Team Lotus as a Malaysian team if it doesn’t have Malaysians it its payroll. I am happy to report that there are 30 Malaysians in the team, some based in Kuala Lumpur and some, mostly engineers based in Norfolk.
There are 17 Malaysians that are based in Norfolk, with 12 of them from the engineering department. Eight engineers work in the Design Office and the rest are positioned in other departments including legal, human resources, driver development, merchandising and more. The team is also proud to mention that it is the only team in the Formula 1 paddock that serves halal Malaysian cuisine during races.
The team is now busy preparing next year’s green and yellow contender, which is slated for an official launch in January 2011. The new car is expected to feature a lighter chassis, complemented by the Renault engine and RBT gearbox. The car which will be piloted by the team’s 2010 drivers Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen is expected to compete with the mid fielders as the team aims to score some precious points next year.
Whether it can achieve it is a different matter all together but at least we can conclude that the people behind the team has direction and passion and it looks like Team Lotus, or what ever it might be called in the future is here to stay in Formula 1 at least for a while. Come back tomorrow as we bring you video interviews with key personnel including the Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen as well as the team’s Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne.
Team Lotus Factory
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Air Asia GP2 Work In Progress
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the only F1 team that talks about halal.
the rest of the team are there to win, this is malaysian team are there to eat, and spend our hard earn money.
halal food. well, do they race during fasting month? or the whole team just close all the lights and take a nap? and start racing in the night?
clearly you don’t understand what’s harvinder wrote up there.
pity you.
oi dah tak ada kerja lain ke? ok, next time everyone just drink pepsi.
3 malaysia backed F1 teams next season.. Malaysia is going crazy, the second country which have so much F1 teams after england!
It is pretty clear that they did not spend any of your hard earned money, based on the number of sponsors they have.
There are muslims working in the team, hence the halal food. I don’t think there are anything to shout about it unless you have problem with people eating halal food.
I think some people do have a problem with halal food as it does not allow pork. The english wake up to a bacon and sausage sandwich. The same goes for the rest of Europe, they love their pork.
I guess the good thing about it being in England is that they can pop out to the closest shop to get their daily pork needs. I would think it would only affect workers there, if they aren’t allowed to have non-halal food in the HQ.
Utterly stupid.
Are you sure there’s no Muslim engineers in other teams? Not just Muslims, are you sure there’s no Jewish engineers somewhere? They eat a Kosher diet, so what’s the big deal with Halal food?
Oh wait I forgot about the vegetarians! They don’t eat meat!! OMGAAAAAAAAHHHH~~~
Come on.. get a life.. I don’t know what to say anymore I feel sorry for you…
this is what i called a racist..not towards a race but towards a religion…
what a pity we still have a malaysian like this
hi sagu,
i am not sure from all the points by the writer, u mentioned on the halal food…the purpose to have this article is suppose to expose a very valueble infos on how they running the f1 team..which is good…and it is not surprise at all if they serve a halal food..
i am a muslim sagu…i dun mine my chinesse fren eat pork just beside me koz i respect them..the best part is..they respect me and eat somewhere else…i must salute this….
sorry for all the readers to mention on this….i just want to highlight…please respect others..no matter what religion they profess…fyi sagu..fasting never restricted me during day time to play football,to do office works and do some workouts at the gym…i can still pump iron as usual ok.
anyway thanx to the wrrite by exposing us for F1……i like the tech but lotus must really catch up and give good fights next season.
Of all the valuable info, I wonder why sagu picked-up the tiny “halal” issue. To Paul Tan n team, I suggest your write-up should be more careful. If the points are not worth to highlight, pls don’t otherwise they are risked being sensationalized n hurt other others’ feeling esp when relates to religion and race. Race as in racetrack is absolutely fine, though.
being muslim myself, I honestly think the “halal food” issue here is so out of place when I first read.
I can only guess why Sagu mentioned “The team is also proud to mention that it is the only team in the Formula 1 paddock that serves halal Malaysian cuisine during races. ” because the team is always mentioning it to Malaysian they know and bump into during races. They are particularly proud of this and try to differentiate theymselves from other teams that way.
Though I understand that this is not always true, in Korean GP the meat was not halal :)
Hi nonama,
Thank you for your comment. Serving ‘halal’ food is something Team Lotus is proud of since it is the only team that serves halal food in the paddock, to cater to its Muslim staff. The reason why we mentioned it in the article is because this is an interesting fact and we don’t regard it as ‘hurting’ people’s feelings, which is the last thing we want anyway.
Team Lotus is a Malaysian team hence we think it is appropriate that we mentioned it. Plus, we believe the line “The team is also proud to mention that it is the only team in the Formula 1 paddock that serves halal Malaysian cuisine during races” sounds very respectful.
Thank you.
you don’t have to explain anything mr harvinder
we all know there’s always someone out there that can’t think straight and can’t look at the bigger picture in your article.
by the way nice write up. Looking forward for the 2nd part
haiyo….fortunately petronas not involved to invest in lotus early this year…great decision by tan sri hassan marican by invest in mercedesGP…but in unfortunate side,because of his decision, his contract as petronas CEO been jeopardize and then force to quit…pity ;-(
Hassan Merican sekarang kerja dengan kerajaan Singapura pula, bawah syarikat sembcorp yang dikawal oleh kerajaan Singapura.. sedikit demi sedikit singapura tarik orang Malaysia yang berjaya.. haaa
http://www.sembcorp.com/sembcorp/about_bod.html
You must be living in the stone edge bro, Tan Sri Hassan Marican left
Petronas due to the conflict of interest with PM on
how Petronas is run and its overseas investment policies.
Not b’cos of sponsoring F1 Merc !!
Don’t act so smart when in fact you know nothing.
its true.. after hassan merican left, petronas now start investing inside country like we saw in news about investing in johor. make the crony more richer i think..
There are few good people left in Petronas. Most have gone to Dubai, Qatar, Saudi…coz Petronas can not retain talent. It aspires to be a Global Champion and be in the Forbes 500 list and yet the one upmanship, and self preservation culture has trapped it in a vertigo. That is Hassan’s legacy.
Isnt that good, Malaysian’s are recognized in the Oil industry that they are offered jobs by other Oil companies? Yes a few have left, but there are many more good people left in Petronas, happens to many companies.
bobdbilder wrote:
“There are few good people left in Petronas. Most have gone to Dubai, Qatar, Saudi…”
that is INSULTING to those who remain in the organisation. are you suggesting that those who stay with PETRONAS are sub par?
TF was lucky to get purchase Airasia for Rm1…. yes! another Rm1 company!
but TF also has to pay Hundred Million of Debts…
dunno what the previous management do with those funds… MACC should reopen the file and investigate…. PKFZ not the 1st and last, theres many more…
macc should get after the politicians FIRST thn worry about the others later…no point u get after the small tiny fish and leave out the entire shark community out there !
any i was hopping for more pictures and more inside info since its an exclusive tour…
That’s the problem with people like Transformer,
Instead of being proud of TF’s success and achievements,
he chooses to backstab and has this jealous culture.
Without TF there would be no AirAsia.
Unless transformer can claim that TF stole his business module !!!
Transformer is like TIN KOSONG = only knows how to grumble and
do nothing with it. If you have proof of TF’s wrong doings then
make a report to MACC !!
i think he was referring to the previous management b4 TF took over and rename it as AA. he’s not hating TF
Air Asia was there long before TF bought the company fro RM1..only then that AirAsia wasn’t making money and in great debts…there was no renaming if I am not mistaken.
I don’t think Air Asia was called that when TF bought it. Wasn’t it called ‘Tune Air’?
I don’t think transformer was criticizing TF. He called for MACC to investigate the mgmt before TF took over. Not on TF
It is called also Air Asia but owned by DRB Hicom group. They operated with 2 (or 3) chartered plane with no clear business model.
The airline operating license was only discovered by the late Tan Sri when HICOM office was in shifting process to DRB Glenmarie.
TF went n see Tun n present his business model. Tun agreed but he not gonna issue new license. TF has to get the license by buying an existing operating airline. This is how he bought AA.
nice. with the better car I look fward to the next season result. hopefully mid tier placing
Nice one. Reminds me of my F1 days; last job was the new Test Cell (Dyno) for the then Honda F1 at their Brackley HQ (now belongs to Mercedes GP), right after we finished their Wind Tunnel. At the same time we were also working on Renault F1 CFD Suite and extension to the RedBull factory.
Shouldn’t your experience be used in this team?
Good one Mr Harvinder. I think you sat on the carbon seat bracket without the actual moulded seat foam. I wonder if you could actually fit in comfortably enough with proper moulded seatt and all.
Bring the technology to Malaysia man.
i support this ‘lotus’. cant wait for next season to start. lotus renault proton boleh makan asap (eat smoke)
you obviously didn’t watch or follow enough F1 news, there’s NO WAY a TOP 5 teams gonna be at the back of the field in 1 season duration… if anything go wrong, they’ll probably ‘stuck’ at the mid-field, along with the like of Williams, Force India & Torro Rosso… if there’s no technical gremblin on their cars next year, how on earth Lotus Renault GP gonna ‘makan asap’ Team Lotus-Renault? Don’t forget that this TF’s team (Team Lotus-Renault) are the back field team & a year old, they just made known their goal next year to be at mid-field & points scorer (personally I think it’s hard.. but realistically achievable)… while Lotus Renault GP (previously know as Renault F1, or Benetton if u want to go back further) was in F1 since years ago & even won 2 Championships recently with Alonso (in 2005 & 2006 as Renault F1 Team), even after the team restructuring post ‘crashgate’ scandal, there’s still the ‘right’ people, experiences, attitude & atmosphere of a winning team.. & all that will ‘complete’ the package of a top & race winner team along with good drivers & good cars… now compare it with Team Lotus, don’t get me wrong, i respect your support to Team Lotus, but i’m just being realistic…
talking in jest only la brader. u think u the only guy watch F1 ka?
Some of the tooling machines that they are using looks quite old. Maybe second hand machines. Then again, there are warships being build using machines that are much much older and they work fine.
If it a way to reduce cost, then fine by me. :)
The facility they’re at, RTN (Racing Technology Norfolk) was first used by TOM’s in hopes of running an F1 programme for Toyota. It was then bought by Audi where they built the Bentley LMP racers for Le Mans earlier this decade. So a lot of the infra and equipment was leftover from those earlier operations
Lucky you Harvey~~~
next time can u bring loyal commenter of this blog to join any of ur visit,,,hahaha