2011 Driver Transfer Market

I think he means in it for the marketing, which in turn means money from car sales. Though whether Lotus Cars make any profit at all in the forseeable future is quite the question.
 
Probably. I think he's just being a litte irrational about it all. A lot of people see Bahar's crew as being some kind of invader, trying to usurp Fernandes, the popular choice for the Lotus heritage. But Bahar's plans for Lotus Cars to have coverage in multiple forms of motorsport - Formula 1, GP2, GP3, Indycar, GT2, GT4 and possibly even Le Mans - is not something that could be done overnight. The direct implication of this is that Lotus Cars has been planning this for some time. After all, the story that Lotus Cars would buy into Renault and use a black and gold livery in 2011 was broken by a French journalist three days before Feranndes and his team declared their intentions to run a black and gold livery.

In actual driver news, Giedo van der Garde is staying with Barwa Addax in GP2 next season; he wants to compete for the championship to improve his odds of getting a drive in 2012. So that's one more potential driver we can cross off the list.
 
But can Lotus even sustain, better yet, even pay for all these motorsport programs they have announced? They aren't exactly making much of a profit, now are they? And if they are, it's definitely not big enough to join F1 Indycar, GT2, GT4, GP2, GP3, and even Le Mans. Where is this money going to come from? Definitely not Proton, becasue the yaren't making any bigger profit than Lotus is. And if they happen to not benefit from these racing programs, Lotus will fail miserably and go into serious debt.
 
I have a sense of feeling that Group Lotus of Dany Bahar have done a major mistake right here... If LRGP cannot get a decent result next season, then they could well be in trouble.

Dany Bahar's ambition seems a little too high for Lotus but does he actually know the situation right now?
 
interludes
Okay, this is a bit tricky: there are two Lotuses.

The first Lotus is Team Lotus. They were known as Lotus Racing in 2010, and they're run by Tony Fernandes. They ran green cars this year, and they will continue to run green cars in 2011. They have an unchanged driver line-up for next season: Jarno Trulli in car #20, and Heikki Kovalainen in car #21.

The second Lotus is Lotus Renault GP. They were known as Renault F1 in 2010, and they're run by Eric Boullier and Gerard Lopez. They ran yellow and black cars this year, but next year they wil run black and gold cars in tribute to the old Lotus racing cars from the 1980s. They have no connection to Tony Fernandes: the Lotus in the title is Lotus Cars, run by Dany Bahar. Lotus Cars is title sponsor of Renault F1, rebranded as Lotus Renault GP. They are also running an unchanged line-up: Robert Kubica in car #9 and Vitaly Petrov in car #10.
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So Ummmmm, which one is the "factory" team, if you will. Or are neither of them related directly to Proton.
 
The Renault team have Proton/Lotus Cars sponsorship. Not really a "factory" effort as its simply title sponsorship. It doesn't really have any relation to any manufacturer anymore, as Renault barely own any of it, it seems and purely brand the engines (which I believe are still produced by Mechachrome?).
It would be better to think of the Renault team as "that team based in Enstone, United Kingdom" as anything else is misleading.

Team Lotus is a completely independent team with no ties to any manufacturers, based in Hingham, Norfolk.

The idea of "factory" teams in F1 only really applies to McLaren and Ferrari nowadays.

Edit: By the way, ludes, Renault are still run by Eric Boullier and the staff at Enstone. Dany Bahar is simply an executive with no hands-on in the team, just as Lopez has little input beyond managing budgets. To say Bahar "runs" the team isn't really accurate.
 
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Peter
But can Lotus even sustain, better yet, even pay for all these motorsport programs they have announced? They aren't exactly making much of a profit, now are they? And if they are, it's definitely not big enough to join F1 Indycar, GT2, GT4, GP2, GP3, and even Le Mans. Where is this money going to come from? Definitely not Proton, becasue the yaren't making any bigger profit than Lotus is. And if they happen to not benefit from these racing programs, Lotus will fail miserably and go into serious debt.
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Dany Bahar is a marketing guru. You've heard of him before, even if you didn't know his name. Remember when Red Bull were cool? When they had the rock-star personality? They had a movie tie-in with SUPERMAN RETURNS in Monaco, and David Coultard wore a Superman cape on the podium. That was Dany Bahar. He crafted a lot of Red Bull's early identity in the sport, and they lost a lot of that when he left the team. From a marketing perspective, if anybody can make Lotus' plan work, it's Bahar.

But I suspect you're just biased because you think Tony Fernandes has a greater claim to the Lotus name.

akmuq
And hopefully will just go away and let Renault manage themselves.
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Renault are not interested in Formula 1 anymore. They don't want to be anything more than an engine supplier. If Lotus Cars were to go under, Renault would probably just pull the pin on the team.
 
interludes
Renault are not interested in Formula 1 anymore. They don't want to be anything more than an engine supplier. If Lotus Cars were to go under, Renault would probably just pull the pin on the team.
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:(. Renault have no control in the team anymore though.
 
interludes
Dany Bahar is a marketing guru. You've heard of him before, even if you didn't know his name. Remember when Red Bull were cool? When they had the rock-star personality? They had a movie tie-in with SUPERMAN RETURNS in Monaco, and David Coultard wore a Superman cape on the podium. That was Dany Bahar. He crafted a lot of Red Bull's early identity in the sport, and they lost a lot of that when he left the team. From a marketing perspective, if anybody can make Lotus' plan work, it's Bahar.

But I suspect you're just biased because you think Tony Fernandes has a greater claim to the Lotus name.
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It doesn't really matter who Bahar is or how "cool" he made another team look (what the hell does that have to do with anything?). On the face of it, Lotus Cars have an extremely amibitious plan which can oh so easily end them, its do or die attack mode for the brand, Bahar has initiated it, but he does not necessarily determine its success. The Renault F1 team could have a disasterous season next year and where would Bahar be then? Probably jumping ship with that 20 mil and focusing on GT and a far less ambitious marketing strategy.

I can also just as easily say you are simply defending Bahar because you seem to love playing devils advocate on pretty much every subject going on F1. Without fail you appear to have taken a contrary stance to the popular opinion on almost all subjects. It makes me wonder sometimes if you really do believe what you type or if you are just doing it for the sake of it, makes the discussions seem a little flat if you just starting them for the sake of discussion. So lets not start accusing bias here, as we all have bias.
 
So what does the F1 2011 grid look like now?

Ferrari - Alonso / Massa
Mclaren - Hamilton / Button
Red Bull - Webber / Vettel
Mercedes - Schumacher / Rosberg
Williams - Barrichello / Who's replaced Hulkenberg again?
Sauber - Kobayashi / Heidfield? De La Rosa?
Lotus Renault - Kubica / Petrov
Force India - Sutil / Di Resta. Long time coming for him, and best of luck if it is indeed true. What's happening to Liuzzi though?
Toro Rosso - Buemi / Alguersauri
Virgin Marussia - Di Grassi's been replaced by Alberqueqe I think, and Glock stays in the other car.
HRT - No idea. Anyone?
Lotus *nee Air Asia...* - Kovalainen and Trulli.

Am I right here?
 
Liuzzi is off back to non-F1 land, he has been given sooo many chances already and proved lacklustre. Perhaps with different opportunities, he may have been a bit of a Fisichella, but he has not even shown that much talent at F1 level.
He was highly rated before F1 though and should find a drive elsewhere easily enough.
 
I was surpised he lasted the full 2010 season, myself. I had the distinct impression Force India were shooting themselves in the foot this time last year ...
 
To be fair, Liuzzi did once again show some glimpses at Monza 2009 and had a great start to the 2010 season. But, as usual for him, he completely got lost for the rest of the year never showing any of the form again.
Hence why I say he may have been a Fisichella with different opportunities, because Fisichella was very inconsistent with his results but far more accomplished and successful than Liuzzi has ever been. Where Liuzzi's good days have been points finishes, Fisichella's have been battles for victories and podiums. Fisichella had generally bettter chances through his career though.

I think Liuzzi deserved his seat and a 2nd chance, but after 2010, it has to be said he's proven he can't hack it. I and others always wondered if he was held back at Red Bull and Toro Rosso...but it seems he wasn't. Even Fisichella made something of some very average machinery. Its difficult to really judge if Liuzzi could have done more with his equipment...but he certainly could have been far more consistent against his teammate at the very least.

Also, consider that Force India didn't have many options for 2010 anyway without hiring a rookie. They needed an experienced driver to replace Fisichella, but I think we can now consider Sutil as pretty experienced.
 
Ardius
To be fair, Liuzzi did once again show some glimpses at Monza 2009 and had a great start to the 2010 season.
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Yeah, but Monza is a lot like Spa, so we already knew the Force India would be strong there. And while he did notch up a ninth place in Bahrain and seventh in Australia, Liuzzi undid it with his backwars somersault into Kobayashi in Shanghai. He was voted F1 Rejects' Reject of the Year for five Q1 eliminations, first-lap accidents in China and Canada, and half a dozen other mistakes. Like those crashes in Germany and Brazil. I think Korea was the only place he really showed what it took to cut it in Formula 1.
 
I hope they give Bruno another chance. He seemed to be the kind of person who never gave up trying despite having one of the two worst cars on the grid.
 
Where would he go? If we assume Force India's Sutil-di Resta line-up is correct, then there are only four seats left available: the two Toro Rossos and the two Hispanias. The two Toro Rossos will be taken by Buemi and Alguersuari for sure. As for the Hispanias, it's impossible to predict who they will take - but given that Colin Kolles said that Davide Valsecchi learned more about the car in one afternoon than "some drivers did in a year" following the young driver tests at Yas Marina, it's pretty obvious that Bruno Senna will not be racing for Hispania in 2011 if Kolles can help it.
 
Yes, it has - but that doesn't mean there's no truth in it. After all, it directly quoted Willi Weber, and even the meanest, sleaziest and trashiest of tabloids - News of the World, The Sun, etc. - would not make up a quote like that.

That said, it's incredibly unlikely that Bruno Senna will race for Force India next year, because a) his name has never been mentioned in conjunction with the team, b) Force India already have a short list of four drivers (Sutil, Liuzzi, di Resta and Hulkenberg), c) they've reportedly been very keen to get di Resta into a race seat in 2011 for some time and d) pretty much every other driver in contention for the seat is rated higher than Senna.
 
If it's not a financial decision which two of these four drivers would you go for?

I'd pick Sutil and Hulkenberg as the drivers.
 

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