Team Lotus has bought Caterham, as you’ve read earlier, and some have branded the acquisition as a “back up plan” of sorts, a name to fall back on should Tony Fernandes and friends lose the Lotus name war against Group Lotus. The case is being played in British courts now, and a verdict is weeks away.
That can’t be dismissed as mere rumour, as it’s been revealed that Team Lotus hired a company to acquire domain names other than the currently used teamlotus.co.uk. The F1 Times says that Net Names, a company which specialises in acquiring domain names, has registered Sonangolcaterham.com, Sonangolcaterhamf1.com and Sonangolcaterhamteamlotus.com on behalf of Team Lotus.
According to the report, the above domain names were acquired on April 19th, a week after Tony Fernandes and Kamarudin Meranun were appointed as directors of Caterham.
Sonan what? Sonangol is the oil company of Angola, sort of like the African nation’s Petronas. This potential title sponsor of “Caterham F1” is a long time backer of Team Lotus’ current reserve driver, Ricardo Teixeira. The 27-year old Lisbon born racer holds dual Portuguese-Angolan nationalities.
Of course this is all assuming they lose the court battle. If they win, Team Lotus will still be Team Lotus!
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AA not a big enough name? They did win world’s best budget airline twice. :-)
mercedes not big enough name? I’m very sure mercedes have won countless of recognitions in auto industry
hope they didnt win d court case!!..
Imagine Team Lotus 7 – produced by naza..eiiwww!!
group lotus in market for decades and all the sudden this SOB came and claim its theirs
they should be ashame.. note to tony : you never gonna succeed cos u can buy whatever name you want but u will never own the legacy… Chapman is lotus n lotus is lotus car subsidiaries of group lotus.. period!!
ps: remember years ago when naza try to purchase lotus and failed… now they use back door.. crazzzzyyyyy!!!
you did forget proton bought group lotus too :)
proton purchase comes with responsibility…..there is worker etc etc….the heritage continuation……not just shaking hands with a bloke with paper in british pub….
and yet…bragging about building everything from scratch bla bla bla….yeah yeah you are brand guy…..just change the name tony!!!!…..
oooo… damn
I didn’t know caterham cars does not have workers when tony purchased it
LoL
what a twist… Caterham 7 is the original Lotus @ Colin Chapman heritage.. see how this could be exploit..
very interesting. caterham pun not bad for a F1 racing team name. go team tony
booo team tony~ go team lotus renault gp~ haha
Why backup plan,like they already know they will lose to proton?proton dun have backup team?R3 Racing maybe?hehe
what is r3 compare to trd, mugen and etc???
aiyooo…AMG pn xmasuk F1.
haaahaaa..opsss..think again..Mugen has enter the f1..remember in the 80s and early 90s?..honda mugen was there =)
It’s just business. If you’re unsure of success, you’ll need something to fall back on.
Just my 2 Cents :)
so TF said his F1 team is more Malaysian than Proton and Petronas. so why still want to use the “mat salleh brand” name? what happen to 1Malaysia? i know “name” is very important for publicity, fans (british!!) etc in F1, but Tony please stop with the we’re more Malaysian bs next time. if TF using 1Malaysia name or other original name for his team, honestly i will support him and his team. what he’s doing right now just too ugly.
probably he meant more malaysian finance his F1 team compare to the number of malaysian who indirectly finance renault lotus and Mercedes… since now everyone can fly, but not everyone choose to own protons and pump in petronas.
sounds like perogol…
TF has massively huge dick to swing around. He just hit out anyone trying to block his way with the dick! hahaha…
SONDOL F1 TEAM
I actually like the name. Sonangol Caterham F1 have a nice vibe. If they really going to name it that then lovely. I can cheer for both team without taking side.
I’m sad to see this great Paultan blog has turn into a hate blog. For years I’ve been reading Paultan’s blog, I’ve never seen so many people full of hatred towards certain individual. Not even Proton get this kind of harsh treatment.
I’ve given up commenting because these people will tag me as a ‘cyber trooper’ for TF la, Proton la.. basically everything/everybody they hates. Childish gila. Grow up a bit la. It is all right to give opinion but to attack somebody viciously, that is plain hatred.
u just posted a comment wat?..
Tony Fernandes is a real Sondol guy.
See his history, He Sondol everyone around him and sondol himself up. Donno how may dato or tan Sri he sondol up. And left them dry exhausted.
He done nothing to country other than sondol people around. Dont worry he a good PR guy. His Sondol around is justified as sake for the nation. just like Promo “Everybody can flies”
“Not even Proton get this kind of harsh treatment.”
If you said that…. then you haven’t been with this blog for long time…. please do look at the archive of protons thread and see how much hatred and false accusations are there…
what TF received here is like just a tiny bit compared to what proton have been going through….
well, anyway… he deserved what he got here…. based on what he has done….