Friday 4th November 2011

Team Lotus And Renault F1 Renamed

Lotus becomes Caterham and Renault becomes Lotus for 2012

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Team Lotus and Lotus Renault GP (that's Renault to thee and me) have finally settled their long-running dispute over the use of the Lotus name after F1 bosses agreed that Renault could change the name of its cars to Lotus for 2012.

Team Lotus, meanwhile, will run Caterhams next year (after team owner Tony Fernandes bought out the British sports car company earlier this year) and will change their official name to reflect that.

Oh, and the Virgin team will now officially run Marussia chassis. But you probably don't really care all that much about that...

So remember: Team Lotus, nee Lotus Racing, is now Caterham. And Renault, nee Benetton (or possibly even Toleman), and also called Lotus Renault GP, is now Lotus. Clear? Good...

And whatever the names of the cars lining up on the grid in 2012, at least we won't have two entirely separate teams with Lotus badges and Renault engines...

 

[Ekona]

Tony Fernandes' team will always get my backing, and the other lot will always be Renault to me.

Caterham in F1 does still seem a bit weird, mind.