Lotus Reveals 2011 F1 Colours, Signs Alesi

Que?

Very stange goings on....still, must be money to be made with track cars (lets hope)

Anyone else thinking that in 18 months time Lotus will disappear in a puff of smoke.

I can't get over how much Jean Alesi looks like President Sarkozy... Has anyone seen them in the same room?

Sarkozy
Alesi

.....to milk what he can out of the Lotus name and whatever loans the Malaysians have committed - and to then have the company sink in a quagmire of debt, unfulfilled promises and dubious deals.

Give the man a chance FFS.

He has recruited some of the leading names in the motor trade.

They have come up with pant wetting designs.

They are promising high level of build quality.

They are hoping to make Lotus make money, and not lose it.

So what if they put on a bit of weight? Not everyone wants to drive around in a car with no comforts, and the smell of glue.

Good on them, and I hope they turn Lotus around. I love the new Elan. Thinks it's gorgeous.

Back them, don't sit there waiting for them to fail, just so you can come on here and say "told you so".

They have to move on. Look at Morgan. Pretty much stuck with what they know. How many people want a car made of wood? Not many.

Loving the new F1 paint work.

Oh FFS!

Give the guy a chance for christ's sake.. he's only been in the job ten minutes and he's already secured more funding that lotus has ever had before, overseen the design of some fantastic looking cars, brought lotus PROPERLY back to F1 AND recruited some of the best names in the industry to support the road car programme.

He may not hit all his targets but so what - its better than just leaving the company making elises until the Malasian owners get bored and it finally folds, surely?

What I found was confusing was the fact that the Lotus car was "unveiled" in black and gold but opposite it all their other cars were green & yellow - the colours of the Other Team Lotus team.

My first thoughts were actually "Hahaha!! Somebody's put Lotus Renault next to the other Lotus! Brilliant!! Oh, wait, those cars ARE the same Lotus..."

I like the colour scheme, a lot, but... I think I'll be rooting for the oher Lotus F1 team, which is banged together in Norfolk...

Often miss quoted and overused. Chapman was indeed thoroughly keen on lightness. But he did have other engineering principles too you know. One of the main benefits of lightness is simplicity, he was at least as keen on that. Also, when Chapman said most of these things he was talking about engineering racing cars rather than road cars. He was interested in ground effect aerodynamics, complicated twin chassis cars and active ride and aero at different points in his career which don't tally with a one track view that he, or Lotus is all about lightness over all else.

Colin Chapman was interested in whatever engineering solution was new, ground breaking and will provide an advantage. Lightness is only one of those principles. Besides which, Bahar has been quoted various times stating that they want each new car to lighter than it's rivals whilst having various new aspects of technology to enhance them. That is exactly what Chapman wanted, not a range of only stripped out pseudo racers, he moved on from that when the 7 ceased production. Elise obsessives still refuse to join him.

I think that was a case of Bahar being childish. He went out to steal Team Lotus' thunder by getting into F1, hoping Fernandes would settle for running as 1Malaysia. When TF told DB to basically GET BENT, DB thought, right, we will steal his livery. By the time this decision was made, the IndyCar and GT4 liveries were already released.

The thing is, Lotus Renault couldn't have gone for the Green and Yellow colours because Team Lotus already had them. They would have been blatently stealing TF's glory then and be seen to be trying to steal the Lotus Racing fan base. So they had to come up with something different. Then it became a race to see who could get a black and gold out first but Team Lotus decided to stick with their 2010 colours. Its DB that has the dodgy company image now and the joke is on him.

All the yanks that are going to see the green and yellow IndyCar and GT4 cars, think that that is Group Lotus, then catch the occasional GP and wonder why Group Lotus is at the back of the field while a lotus pretender is up the front. (At least for the first few races.)