Ferrari joins the Sierra club

When Ferrari announced that its new Formula 1 car was to be called the F150, many car-savvy folk commented on the fact that Ford has a long-lived US-market model of the same name, give or take a strategically placed hyphen. Today’s news that Ford is taking legal action against Ferrari – citing trademark infringement and claiming punitive damages under anti-cybersquatting legislation – was therefore almost inevitable.

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.

Liuzzi: Shoulda Woulda Coulda?

This may be a more contemporary pop reference than I’m usually known for, but Beverley Knight’s 2002 ditty Shoulda Woulda Coulda sprang to mind when Force India confirmed today that which has been known for several weeks: Paul di Resta is to drive for the team in 2011 and Vitantonio Liuzzi is to depart.

Those paddock scribes who are close to Liuzzi’s manager, Peter Collins, have been gnashing their teeth and wailing about the move for some time. They point out that he has been loyal, that he has never openly criticised the team, and that there are compelling reasons for what others view as his underperformance.

Trouble is, of course, you could construct identical arguments for dozens of drivers throughout history – those poor souls who were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Quite a few of them drove for Ferrari. Liuzzi has now struck out twice from semi-decent F1 teams, and although those departures owe much to the attention-deficit management style of Helmut Marko in the first instance and the curious neophilia of Vijay Mallya in the second, the fact remains that Liuzzi has spent several seasons in F1 conspicuously failing to impress the people who matter – the people who actually make the decisions rather than those who merely analyse them from the sidelines.

Although it’s always disappointing to see a promising talent squandered by muddled team management and mediocre cars, the fact is that Formula 1 is an up-or-out business unless the troughs in your performance trajectory are smoothed by voluminous quantities of outside finance (although this usually cast iron proposition may be tested by Pastor Maldonado in 2011). Tonio Liuzzi won’t be the first driver to leave F1 with only a litany of regreats, missed opportunities and well-worn excuses to look back on, and he won’t be the last.

2010: how did I do?

Phew! Another year has rattled past quick-sharp. They never quite pan out how you expect, do they? 12 months ago, in the spirit of making resolutions for the new year, I published a ‘to do’ list for 2010. So, how did I do on the to-dos?
1) Attend more grands prix. For various reasons (hosting at Renault, working in other series, not being organised enough to sort accreditation in time, etc) I only went to one GP in 2009. Yes, the travel is expensive, but going to races and keeping busy during the weekend is the only way to properly keep up with what’s going on.
Ah. Er. Fail! And, humiliatingly, for many of the same reasons as 2009.
2) Watch Michael Schumacher in action at a big-balls corner, preferably during qualifying. Love him or hate him, MS is a fabulous sight on a hot lap.
Oh, the perils of building one resolution on another. Still, MS was a bit of a dud in 2010. If he does better next year, I will…
3) Read a Thomas Hardy novel. Mrs C suggests Jude the Obscure.
Success! Courtesy of a month’s booking at the Red Bulletin back in January, necessitating a train journey hither and thither to ‘that London’, this one went straight in the back of the net. Perhaps ill-advisedly I followed this notoriously grim and depressing novel with Norman Mailer’s The Naked and The Dead, a similarly gloomy read.
4) Learn how to do a bow tie. May just be a very useful life skill…
Fail, fail, fail. They say that the Queen can spot a clip-on bow tie from a mile off. Still, since hardly anyone from motorsport ever picks up a new year honour from HRH, I’ve got plenty of time to practice.
5) Comment on more blogs. It’s the polite thing to do.
Hmm. Qualified success.
6) Finish reading A Man In Full. This is a failed resolution from 2009 (in my defence, although I’ve had the book 10 years, I bought it in large-format hardback from remaindered stock and it isn’t very portable).
This is now a failed resolution from 2010 as well, but for the best of reasons: I haven’t had any long layoffs in which to sit down and read the wretched thing.
7) Deliver my second book on time.
Ahem. Well, the good news is that it’s finished and it looks great. Judge for yourselves in April 2011!

Phew! Another year has rattled past quick-sharp. They never quite pan out how you expect, do they? 12 months ago, in the spirit of making resolutions for the new year, I published a ‘to do’ list for 2010. So, how did I do on the to-dos?

1) Attend more grands prix. For various reasons (hosting at Renault, working in other series, not being organised enough to sort accreditation in time, etc) I only went to one GP in 2009. Yes, the travel is expensive, but going to races and keeping busy during the weekend is the only way to properly keep up with what’s going on.

Ah. Er. Fail! And, humiliatingly, for many of the same reasons as 2009.

2) Watch Michael Schumacher in action at a big-balls corner, preferably during qualifying. Love him or hate him, MS is a fabulous sight on a hot lap.

Oh, the perils of building one resolution on another. Still, MS was a bit of a dud in 2010. If he does better next year, I will…

3) Read a Thomas Hardy novel. Mrs C suggests Jude the Obscure.

Success! Courtesy of a month’s booking at the Red Bulletin back in January, necessitating a train journey hither and thither to ‘that London’, this one went straight in the back of the net. Perhaps ill-advisedly I followed this notoriously grim and depressing novel with Norman Mailer’s The Naked and The Dead, a similarly gloomy read.

4) Learn how to do a bow tie. May just be a very useful life skill…

Fail, fail, fail. They say that the Queen can spot a clip-on bow tie from a mile off. Still, since hardly anyone from motorsport ever picks up a new year honour from HRH, I’ve got plenty of time to practice.

5) Comment on more blogs. It’s the polite thing to do.

Hmm. Qualified success.

6) Finish reading A Man In Full. This is a failed resolution from 2009 (in my defence, although I’ve had the book 10 years, I bought it in large-format hardback from remaindered stock and it isn’t very portable).

This is now a failed resolution from 2010 as well, but for the best of reasons: I haven’t had any long layoffs in which to sit down and read the wretched thing.

7) Deliver my second book on time.

Ahem. Well, the good news is that it’s finished and it looks great. Judge for yourselves in April 2011!

Time for some realism on Lotus

Lotus-Renault's official livery

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…