Group Lotus in for the long haul
Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar insists the company is unperturbed about people referring to Lotus Renault GP as just 'Renault'.
Confusion is the order of the day in F1 after Group Lotus decided to back the former Renault F1 team and rebrand it Lotus Renault despite Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes's plans to run his outfit under the 'Team Lotus' name next year.
Many people still refer to Fernandes' outfit as 'Lotus' while many are sticking to 'Renault' when discussing the Enstone-based squad.
Bahar says the Renault name was always going to stick, but is upbeat things will change after a couple of years.
"Yes, I understand that and we are fully aware of this, and we were aware of this before we did this move," he said in London. "However, when we fully decide to enter into an activity of this size, it is a long-term agreement, a long-term activity for us. It is not about the next year or the next two years, it is something to establish, to give the sustainability to the whole company for the next 10 years.
"We are well aware that we cannot change the mechanisms that are in place today by changing the chassis name, because this would have a lot of negative consequences. We are fine being a sponsor at the moment, and we have to respect the fact that commentators will just use the name Renault. That is unfortunately as it is."
Bahar also revealed that the company plans to build their own engines in a couple of years.
"We have plans underway to think about our own engine family in our road car programmes for the future," he said.
"The fact that we have announced that we will be developing an engine for Indycar for 2012 shows already that we are heavily interested in becoming an engine manufacturer with our own brand."
Credit: PlanetF1.com (www.planetf1.com)
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