This situation is not without precedent in F1 and the car industry as a whole. 20 years ago Porsche got uppity when Leyton House gave its new Ilmor-engined chassis the designation CG911.

Looking further back, Ford itself ended up at the wrong end of a lawsuit when it launched the Sierra in 1982. A kit car manufacturer called Dutton had been marketing an incredibly ugly soft-roader (ironically enough, based on Ford Escort mechanicals) called the Sierra for three years.

It would have been a classic David vs Goliath victory, save for the fact that neither side quite got what they wanted, although Dutton was awarded costs. Neither managed to prevent the other from using the name, on the basis – said the judge in the case – that kit cars occupied an entirely different automotive category to production cars. Perhaps there will be a similar outcome in the Ford vs Ferrari tangle?

Edit: Ferrari has acted quickly to defuse the issue and tweaked the nomenclature of its car. It also issued a statement which said:

On the subject of the name of the new Ferrari Formula 1 car, the Maranello company wishes to point out that it has sent a letter of reply to Ford, underlining the fact that the F150 designation (used as the abbreviated version of the complete name, which is Ferrari F150th Italia) never has, nor ever will be used as the name of a commercially available product – indeed there will definitely not be a production run of single-seaters.

Lotus-Renault's official livery

Pictures released last week of a Renault bedecked in black and gold and wearing a Lotus badge on the nose amply demonstrate that Dany Bahar and the Group Lotus crew have landed a stinging blow against the ‘other’ Lotus. The pictures, accompanied by an exclusive in AUTOSPORT magazine, set in motion a host of sulky Tweets from bigwigs in the ‘other’ Lotus (hereafter referred to by the business’s formal title, 1Malaysia Racing) and a spasm of irk from members of various fan forums on the internet.

I’ve written before, with tongue firmly in cheek, that watching a pair of opportunist businessmen handbag each other over a moribund (if potentially lucrative) historic enterprise has echoes of the hilarious late-1990s high court spat between Bobby Gee and David Van Day over who had the right to tour under the name of 1982 Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz. The fans, however, seem to take it rather more seriously, and spent the past weekend hauling AUTOSPORT over the coals because of its perceived stance on the issue.

It’s a well-worn maxim that the easiest way to make a small fortune in motor racing is to start off with a large one. To succeed in F1 requires business sense and a certain agility, not to say more than a little ruthlessness. Only in the reductionist world of internet forums, where one is either a hero or a villain and nothing in between, do we find these saintly figures who arrive in the sport for purely altruistic reasons.

I say this because Tony Fernandes, whom I have every respect for, came to Formula 1 to make a profit, not to spend large sums of his own money breathing life into a dead name. The motive for this Lazarus routine with Team Lotus was pure entrepreneurship: he saw an opportunity in the orphan asset, set about obtaining it for a knock-down price, then added value with the ultimate ambition of selling the enterprise on to someone else.

This is not news in the Formula 1 world. The obvious ‘someone else’ was Proton, from whom he obtained the original licence to use the Lotus name when David Hunt, notional owner of the ‘Team Lotus’ rights, did not jump in straight away.

Trouble is, according to one of my snouts, Fernandes assured Proton that his team would be among the frontrunners in its first season. Oops.

Whatever configuration of the Lotus name is above the door, the 1Malaysia Racing Team is a remarkable achievement. Tony Fernandes thoroughly deserves to turn a profit from it: he put the right people together, resourced it adequately, and generated considerable goodwill by marketing the team vigorously. Having a Colin Chapman-style hat under glass on the pitwall was a stroke of PR genius. I hate to puncture any illusions held by fans, but this is a marketing exercise par excellence as well as a team with undisputed soul.

David Hunt may come to regret not getting on board sooner, for now there is another opportunist entrepreneur on the scene: Dany Bahar. He has grandiose plans for Group Lotus and a stipend from the Malaysian government, via Proton, to put them into action. Whether this self-confessed ‘non-car guy’ genuinely understands what he’s doing is neither here nor there for now. It is a fundamental axiom of the luxury and performance car market that execution and perceived quality are at least as important as style, and shortcomings in the former areas are the chief cause of Lotus’s failings over the past three or four decades.

If Bahar fails to deliver then he will not personally suffer, because he is playing with other people’s money: it is the Malaysian taxpayer who will take a bath, in much the same way as Ireland is now in penury because its banks lent injudiciously to ludicrous enterprises such as the Donington renovation.

Where does the team formerly known as Renault F1 fit into this? I don’t suppose they care so long as the cheque from Proton doesn’t bounce. The ‘reveal’ of their car in ersatz John Player Special colours was an inspired piece of mischief: 1Malaysia Racing had signalled their intention to move to that colour scheme some weeks ago, and had even invited fans to submit ideas. Crucially, though, Enstone’s graphic designers beat them to the crucial stage of getting an image into the public domain.

David Hunt, meanwhile, has been reduced to venting his rage at the state of affairs in various Norfolk-based newspapers, rather in the manner of Alan Partridge. He and Fernandes need to tread carefully. 1Malaysia Racing’s plans for 2011 hinge on a Renault powerplant and Red Bull’s tightly packaged (and aero-friendly) drivetrain, and the use of the Team Lotus name. If they lose the rights to the latter in court then a costly change to the team’s entry beckons, for they will lose their 2010 prize money if forced to do so.

Also, the word on the street is that they are perilously close to triggering a severance clause in the engine supply contract if they don’t lay down their weapons. Ghosn in 60 seconds, you might say…

Banco Santander, the multinational financial group which sponsors both Ferrari and McLaren (although in the latter team its branding appears only on the drivers’ overalls), has released figures from the Media Sports Marketing and Havas Sport consultants estimating the bank’s return on investment (ROI) from its F1 sponsorships at €270million in 2010, up from a previous estimate of €250million.

The bank also takes title sponsorship of the British, German and Italian Grands Prix.

Meanwhile, back in Abu Dhabi, Mubadala – an investment company run by one of the members of the royal family – is selling its five per cent stake in Ferrari back to the FIAT group. Mubadala reportedly paid €114million in 2005 for the stake, originally held by the Italian bank Mediobanca. The figure mooted for the current sale is €122million, which is a tidy sum given the travails of the automotive industry in recent years. The sale has come about because FIAT exercised an option to buy back the shares – an option it has deferred several times.

Mubadala is part of Abu Dhabi’s strategy to diversify away from fossil fuels and into tourism and technology by making key investments. We can expect to see the name return before long – indeed, the rumour mill is already linking it to a possible acquisition of the Formula One Group from CVC Capital Partners. That may be a little far-fetched, though…

The forthcoming Lotus Elite

Today at the Paris Motor Show it will officially unveil five* new road car models that go some way beyond its traditional two-seater sportscar model, and which establish a new design language courtesy of incoming ex-Ferrari stylist Donato Coco. They will roll out between 2013 and 2015. There’s the Elite, a mid-engined 2+2 with the option of a Toyota-derived hybrid powertrain. There are new versions of the Elan and Elise, plus the rebirth of the Esprit, which will take on the Ferrari 458 Italia. There’s also a four-door called the Eterne, which targets the Porsche Panamera…

So where’s the money coming from for this new model splurge? Before recruiting CEO Dany Bahar from Ferrari, Proton, the owner of Group Lotus, decided on a strategy which others less delicate than I would call “shit or bust”: either sell it off or make it finally live up to its potential.

Fair enough – but, yes, where’s the money coming from? Proton isn’t exactly flush, and Lotus recently applied for a loan from the UK Government which it did not get (what do you expect from a Prime Minister who’s never had a proper job?).

While we’re at it – where and how are these products going to be made? Whence are the raw materials going to be sourced and paid for? Who will build the cars, and where? Some aspects of this great whoosh of announcements will disturb those who remember the dying days of another well-known British car manufacturer.

Lotus LMP2 coupé concept

Ten years ago MG Rover had a similar new model push: there was an LMP2 equivalent (then called LMP675), a new city car and a new high-end sportscar. The difference then was that the expansion came through partnership and/or acquisitions: the MG-badged LMP675 was done with Lola, the Cityrover was acquired from Tata and the MG XPower SV was a (hideously) facelifted Qvale Mangusta. MG Rover needed a quick fix that these products didn’t deliver.

Still, there are reasons for optimism: a venerable motoring scribe recently visited the Group Lotus base and was reportedly blown away by what he saw. Some of these new models will not be built until the middle of the decade, so there is no requirement for an immediate five-fold increase in manufacturing capacity. Today’s announcement is a land grab for headlines and a bold statement of intent.

Tucked away in the small print is another telling detail: Lotus will scale down its dealer network to offer better service and a more exclusive face. As much as anything else, today is about reclaiming the brand and the famous badge with the ACBC initials, but also beginning a process of rehabilitation – consigning the epithet Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious to the dustbin of history.

What’s in a badge?

Yesterday’s revelation that the simmering tension between Lotus Racing and Group Lotus exploded into outright rancour over the seemingly trivial issue of t-shirts cuts right to the heart of this issue. What’s in a name? What, indeed, is in a badge?

You may equally say – why can’t they just get along?

Anyone who works in the marketing industry or its tertiary sectors will tell you that branding is all about control. Every major company has strict guidelines about colour palettes, font families and the size, shape and alignment of the logo. When you produce marketing materials on behalf of these brands you either stick to these guidelines or you have your homework thrown back at you along with a curt instruction to do it again, properly.

By his own admission, Dany Bahar is not a “car guy”. But he knows about brands, and having a bunch of clowns running off t-shirts, baseball caps, posters, etc (let alone a whole Formula 1 team) off the back of “his” brand must have made him apoplectic. For here’s another unspoken truth about the branding industry: it’s the home of not-invented-here syndrome. To any branding wonk from a multinational corporation, anything produced by an outside body (especially when unauthorised) is automatically bad, even if it’s good. Only the best agencies get over this hurdle.

While we’re in the market for truths, here’s another one that governs the car industry: show, don’t tell. You can throw money at branding and seductive advertisements, but the success of a car manufacturer is measured in sales. That means, in no particular order: having a compelling product; having a product that doesn’t start falling apart the moment it leaves the showroom; and having dealers who don’t treat the customer like a dead shrew that the cat dumped at the bottom of the stairs.

Can Lotus deliver all of these? It will have to.

*There was a sixth kicking about, a city car, but it wasn’t part of the main reveal.

Tony Dodgins caught up with David Hunt, notional owner of the Team Lotus name, at the Singapore Grand Prix. Many commenters have questioned Hunt’s motives in relation to the Team Lotus legacy, and I would commend this story to them so that they can take a balanced view.

I was particularly taken with this quote, about how he came to acquire the whole mess:

I had been helping with the sponsorship, consulting to the Peter Collins-led management and was asked to help try and rescue the team from the administrator. Kenny Wapshot and I had gone to set up Team Lotus Japan and bring in Japanese money. We were asked to represent a consortium who wanted to buy it but didn’t want their names known.

I was asked to front it and they didn’t have the money ready. Kenny and I were prevailed upon to put the funds up, which we did. We were told that if we bought it certain things would happen and we’d be alright. We did, and we weren’t. We were left holding a rather large and expensive baby.

There was certainly no plan to own a Formula 1 team, and certainly not one in trouble. We literally woke up one day and realised we’d been had over. We owned a Formula 1 team that had all its contracts breached, we had no sponsorship, no drivers and 96 staff, most of which had been there a long time, some of them 25 years plus, since Chunky [Chapman] himself.

You can read the full story here.

Lotus: a burnt offering? Photo by Darren Heath

In the green corner we have Dany Bahar, a former branding wonk at Red Bull and Ferrari, who became CEO of Group Lotus last September. In the other green corner we have Tony Fernandes, a former high flyer in the music business who realised that September 11, 2001 was a great day to buy a failing airline (this he did, snapping up Air Asia from the Malaysian government for one ringgit). In the middle we have an utter failure to understand the complex nature of the Lotus business.

Team Lotus was always a separate entity from the road car business, in part because it enabled Chapman and his accountant, Fred Bushell, to play which-shell-is-the-peanut-under with HMRC and sundry other creditors. The picture was complicated after Chapman’s death in 1982, when the team carried on racing under its own auspices and the Group was sold to General Motors.

As a result of the GM sale, the Lotus brand was subjected to some hideous contortions, perhaps the nadir of which was the Isuzu Piazza, a hideous contraption that bore decals proclaiming “Handling By Lotus”. I once walked all the way round one expecting to find a similar badge advertising “Styling By David Blunkett”.

Even when Chapman was alive, ownership of a Lotus car was a labour of love in which sublime handling prowess and pleasant styling were offset by dreadful reliability – to the extent that owners joked the Lotus name actually stood for Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious. Quality has improved in the interim, but Lotus – now owned by Proton, and still having to act as an engineering consultancy as well as a car maker to make ends meet – still has a long way to go before it can liken itself to Ferrari. Plenty of niche sportscar makers aspire to be as big as Ferrari, but most of them go bust along the way (don’t believe me? Call a medium and ask them to put you in touch with Ferruccio Lamborghini).

When Team Lotus collapsed at the end of 1994, David Hunt (brother of James) and a business partner took on the assets, such as they were. The only thing of value was the (trademarked) name, and Hunt has been trying to maintain that value ever since, including several attempts to bring it back into F1.

In 2002 David Richards let it be known that he was looking to rebrand the BAR team. As a jolly editorial wheeze, the magazine I was working on at the time invited its readers to send in their suggestions… and we were somewhat surprised to receive a high volume of identically phrased letters and emails suggesting that DR change the name to Team Lotus. Who was behind this? Step forward Mr Hunt…

(Parenthetically, by September that year we had a hot tip as to what the name was actually going to be. I was dispatched to Monza with instructions to secure an interview with DR, and then in the midst of the usual process of things hit him with our ‘scoop’ to see if it got a reaction. That it did: he hooted with laughter, told me it was a stupid name and that it sounded more like a brand of lavatory disinfectant. A couple of months later the rebrand was announced: instead of BAR it would be known as B.A.R, with the dots aligned with the centre of the letters rather than the bottom. How much do you reckon they had to pay a consultant for that piece of work?)

As Dietrich Mateschitz’s right-hand man, the ambitious Bahar had nowhere left to go in the Red Bull business. When he left for Ferrari, the word on the street was that he had been coveting Christian Horner’s position as team principal of the F1 team, and having failed to secure that he was hoping to slot into the succession at Maranello. Unfortunately he came in as Jean Todt’s man just as Todt was on his way out…

By the time Bahar’s feet were under the table at Group Lotus, in September 2009, Tony Fernandes had concluded a multi-year licencing deal to use the Lotus Racing name in F1, having failed to do a deal with Hunt to run as Team Lotus. Bahar knew that to fulfil his ambitions to turn Lotus into a properly multi-national behemoth to rival Ferrari, he needed to be in F1 – trouble is, Fernandes got there first.

So over the past few months there has been much manoeuvring behind the scenes. Bahar has been attempting to register various permutations of the Lotus name as trademarks. Fernandes, aware of his tenuous grip on the Lotus Racing name, has made sure that it was he rather than Group Lotus who clinched a deal with Hunt for the prized name – and logo – of Team Lotus. He managed it in the nick of time, for Group Lotus recently annuled the licencing deal. A more vivid picture of all the goings-on emerged when the 2011 GP2 teams were announced, featuring a Lotus-branded team run by ART in partnership with Group Lotus – and a Fernandes-owned team running as Air Asia.

Today the owner of Group Lotus, Proton, has weighed in to the battle. It issued a statement that amounts to a cease-and-desist notice, threatening dire levels of legal buggeration if Fernandes carries on using the Team Lotus name:

Tony Fernandes has no rights to use the Lotus brand in the 2011 Formula 1 season, and we will strongly resist any attempts by him to use our brand without our permission and will withdraw our sponsorship of the Lotus Racing team.

To put it simply, Group Lotus is everything Lotus. The fact that 1 Malaysia Racing Team entered into an agreement with Group Lotus to use the brand means that both Mr. Fernandes and 1 Malaysia Racing Team recognises and acknowledges Group Lotus’ rights.

Oh what a tangled web they weave. But is the brand and the badge, with the fabled intitials of Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman, really worth all the hoo-ha?

The situation bears amusing similarities with the sorry saga of Bucks Fizz, the pop act that won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982. By the mid-1990s two of the original four members had retired from the touring scene, and the remaining pair recruited another couple to replace them.

“Musical differences” and general rancour ensued, which ultimately resulted in them going their separate ways – each recruiting two more members and attempting to tour the UK under the Bucks Fizz name. Summing up in the messy court case that followed, a weary judge attempted to amuse himself by informing the combatants that over 15 years after the heyday of Bucks Fizz, “the fizz has rather gone out of it.”

Will Bahar or Fernandes back down, or will it go to court? Well, to quote the popular maxim – also co-opted by Bucks Fizz for a minor hit – If You Can’t Stand The Heat, Stay Out Of The Kitchen…

Ian entered motorsport as a journalist, on Autosport’s national news beat, in the 1960s – working with Paddy McNally, who now runs the Paddock Club at grands prix. Even after moving on to the commercial side he retained the hack’s nose for gossip; many of the breaking news stories you’ll have read over the years will have originated over coffee and a cigarette in the Leyton House/Jordan/Midland/Spyker/Force India motorhome.

Word is that Ian has known for some time that his departure was desired, but he has been holding on for the right pecuniary package to be put on the table. It’s possible that he will go into business with Eddie Jordan, following Anthony Hamilton into the market for grooming new talent.

So while Peter Windsor subsists on room service while trying to clear up the mess that is USF1, Ken Anderson has been spouting cant to the press.

“The way the chips fell in January, that put us behind,” he told AUTOSPORT. “We were on schedule right up until mid-January, and that was when some issues arose with sponsors that kind of locked us up.”

Chips? Fell? What twaddle is this? Here’s how an F1 start-up works, Ken: sponsors and partners set certain key technical milestones, with deadlines, and when those are met – on deadline – hey presto! More money arrives.

And when I say “key technical milestones” I mean “actual bits of an F1 car, not just pictures of what they may look like”. It’s as simple as that.

Here’s another tip on how to get ahead in F1: if you’ve got a benevolent millionaire entrepreneur on board, share him with Bernie. Even just an introduction would do. A little more goodwill may have radiated from Princes Gate as a result.

The only hope left is to keep the entry notionally alive so that it can be sold to pay off the creditors, including some very angry Argentines; and the sorry legacy of this tawdry scenario is that the much-needed American F1 team and US Grand Prix now seem further away than ever. Still, the local Starbucks has done well out of it.

Launched by media mogul Ted Turner in 1980, the Cable News Network leapt to international prominence during the first Gulf War by dint of being in the right place at the right time: it had a clutch of reporters in Iraq when hostilities broke out. The 24-hour news cycle we take for granted today truly came of age as Bernard Shaw (no relation to the author of Pygmalion) reported live on the bombing of Baghdad.

The competition between these rolling news networks is fierce, and, as you might expect, coverage is costly, especially since the big guns now operate locally tailored programming on a global basis – usually aimed at a business audience. Increasingly these networks – even BBC World – are turning to commercial sponsorship of their news broadcasts. The Lotus release aligns its ‘partnership’ with CNN’s ‘Partner Solutions Group’ (I feel a submission to Private Eye coming on) under the leadership of Rani Raad, the senior vice president International Advertising Sales, who had this to say:

The combination of two such iconic and aspirational global brands fits perfectly with CNN International’s worldwide reach and brand positioning. This unique partnership with Lotus Racing takes CNN International into a new era of marketing and promotions and puts us in front of a worldwide audience of millions.

Raad is credited with engineering a number of high-profile programme sponsorships for CNN International. Most recently he has been involved in a deal for the Earth’s Frontiers environmental series to be sponsored by Masdar, a renewable energies company wholly owned by Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi (which, coincidentally, has a stake in Ferrari as well as being one of the driving forces behind the Abu Dhabi GP). CNN is also launching a broadcast facility in the emirate.

Some readers may be uncomfortable with corporate sponsorship of news broadcasting, but this is the direction we’re heading in as conventional ad revenues decline. There are governments and sovereign wealth funds out there with pots of money that they wish to spend on promoting their countries as business destinations. The Lotus connection will engender a lot of attention in the kind of emerging markets CNN is aiming for.

Team principal Ross Brawn said:

Everyone at Mercedes GP is delighted to confirm our long-term agreement with Petronas and we look forward to working closely with our new partner in the future. The collaboration of the premium automotive brand Mercedes-Benz and a company as prestigious as Petronas gives our team a fantastic base from which to achieve our ambitions of competing at the top level of Formula One and building on the success of 2009 which saw the team achieve the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships. Our plans for the new season are progressing well, as is the development of our 2010 challenger, and we look forward to seeing the car run in the new Silver Arrows and Petronas livery at the Valencia test in February.

There had been much speculation in recent weeks that Mobil 1 would either leave McLaren or split its involvement between the two, but it appears that Mercedes were looking for more than just a technical partner. Mobil 1’s financial input into McLaren is relatively modest but the arrangement has been mutually beneficial, so it saw no need to spend more on a title sponsorship. Neither did it wish to transfer its allegiance from a team with which it has enjoyed considerable success.

When synthetic oil was introduced to the market in the 1970s, in the wake of the first oil shock, it was viewed with suspicion by many customers. Mobil 1 conquered this and established itself as a market leader by getting involved in motor sports and demonstrating its product there. It has been involved in over 100 Formula 1 wins, over half of which have come through its relationship with McLaren.

In recent years oil has become an increasingly important development path. The freeze on R&D, and the move to multi-race engines, has increased the demands on the lubricant in two ways: it must protect the engine over a longer duty cycle, but it can also liberate more power if blended to exactly the right viscocity.

It will be interesting to see what effect the move has on Mobil 1’s relationship with Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines in Brixworth.