The end of Lotus F1? Proton terminates contract with the 1 Malaysia Racing Team

[xand]

guess this won't end easy... might be court proceedings in the future. and free publicity for malaysia again.

 

[hafidz_moro]

I also heard the news that PROTON are ready set to slet-off LOTUS GROUP & ENGINEERING on my Twitter last few days?! Any comments? :hmmmm:

 

[momo925]

"Team Lotus and Group Lotus is 2 different rights and lisence. If you wanna put things together. Lotus Restaurant also belong to Group Lotus?"

If they are diff, y dont u try to use 1Malaysia Red-Bull Racing Team?? or 1Malaysia Pepsi Racing Team? they seem like 2 diff rights n licenses too, only if u were right. Wen it comes to international copy right n licensing dispute, it is defitnitely not as simple as tat. Try to register a Pepsi Sdn Bhd. c how much damages u need to compensate to PepsiCo Inc. =)

again, if Lotus restaurant advertised their foods in commercial wif sport cars n or any action tat might mislead consumers to relate wif Group Lotus, they wil receive letter from Lotus lawyer right after tat. =)

Personally i like to read all da discussion but den, i cant stand wif all da cock-talking around like kopitiam ahpek. for me, i thk Proton has da rights to protect the brand wic they acquired wif billions dollar, n Tunes Group has the right to bring on this matter to court to seek for advices/protection (watever u call tat). den court wil decide.

cheers. hey, if and only if, Lotus Racing name is no longer available in coming future, is tat means tat the Lotus Proton Neo r twice expensive as b4? hahaha.

 

[Notoriez]

I believed that this is sour grapes action from Proton.

They unable to purchase the name Lotus Racing from David Hunt before but irked when TF n co managed to purchase it under their nose. Now with the name belongs to Tune Group instead of Proton, TF and Co would be able to use the name freely as they like and Proton will not get a single cent out of it.

But i am wondering, why do Proton needed to make a big fuss about this name issue. Wouldn't it will benefit them indirectly if Lotus Racing can bring back their former glory days. Why they don't just let TF with his business knowledge to run the team as i believed most of us think the only right man in Malaysia for managing our F1 team.

 

[driftkingII]

wow i am shocked over this news...

i remembered lotus was happy until they made an F1 car sale (A detune F1 car for 1 million euros)

========

btw, (i am not defending proton or Mr. Tony) IMO..

this is what is saw..

Lotus Racing is a good F1 Team, look even the legend Ayrton was also in Lotus...

in my observation instead of improving the race n cars like other teams...

The Lotus team is actually not racing but trying to beat Virgin Racing in some stupid bet done by both Mr Branson n Mr Tony...

i realise that they are not racing for some points but for this stupid bet... I was hoping they both forget about the bet n race to win like what F1 is all about.. I think maybe this is one of the reason Proton fedup with them...

p/s: Does anyone knows?? Air Asia sponsor is on the Williams team ??

 

[Evolution_tme]

I support Mercedes Petronas anyway!!! :P I think Petronas did the country proud WAY more than Lotus! lucky Petronas didn't sponsor lotus if not they will be stuck in the problem now between Proton and Tune Group.

go schumi!! hahaha!

 

[teamsleepnine]

In short, Lotus in F1 is making Malaysia known in the World map.....so proton should NOT try to terminate it unless they have someone more capable to run the Lotus F1 team than Tony, which i seriously doubt it as it seems in their track record the Proton management is better at playing politics (easy job), SO PROTON Please keep your politics out by *Negotiation to solve any Problems* so that we can continue to have our own Malaysia Lotus F1 Team which Malaysian are Proud of rather that let "Politics" Destroy any Good things for Malaysia !!!!!

Please Wake Up PROTON !!! Cheers

Wake up proton?...why lah?? tony the one that playing dirty politics by quietly buying the name team lotus from a company that have been holding ransom to proton,proton at the first place gave him the licence to use the name lotus racing.

 

[Trinityblood]

both parties driven by self interest, TF side was fine since thier business man. Proton? seem all the top management sleeping and went holiday a lot.

 

[C_Fu]

I think I know what Tony is trying to do, and it's pretty ingenius from a business perspective if you think about it.

It's like Rolls Royce. The RR brand is used by two different companies, FYI.

One company makes RR jet engines.
One company makes RR cars (now owned by BMW).

When the RR company splits, it also split the business into two, but both retain the branding - just as long as either one tak kacau the other business. Like if BMW starts to make jet engines under the brand RR, the jet engine RR will sue them till kingdom come.


Same case here when Lotus got split into two by none other than Mr Chapman due to mismanagement.

Group Lotus owns the car side of the business - Elise, etc.
Team Lotus owns the F1 side of the business - the one till 94 before the team ended.

Group Lotus was never given the F1 business, but when proton, owners of Group Lotus, decided to use the Lotus name for F1, as predicted by many, all hell breaks lose. That's why the name wasn't confirmed till the very last minute if you guys remember (from 1Malaysia team to Proton F1 to now). And when Proton tries to sideline Tony on his Tune/AirAsia importance, his best bet is to nail Proton back where it hurts.

Why was it allowed to enter F1 if Proton can't use the Lotus branding? My best guess would be F1 needed the teams and money last year, so cincai lah :D

 

[avubaker]

proton should just concentrate on making more reliable car domestically. usher the proton name by quality rather than spend millions on sponsorship. my proton car broke down many times and spend thousands on repair. pledge to myself never buy a proton again. :saint:

 

[hksp]

proton phailed