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Today Dany Bahar the CEO of Group Lotus entertained a small group of media at a lunch at the RAC Club in London’s Pall Mall. This was the second year of this event.
On the agenda this time were Kimi Raikkonen, the possibility of Group Lotus taking over the F1 team from Genii or vice versa, Lotus Renault GP’s rejection of “pay drivers” and the future of Eric Boullier as team principal of the team.
It was confirmed that Bahar has been awarded a four year contract extension, following a visit by the board of Lotus holding company Proton to the HQ in Hethel, Norfolk. With the uncertainty over the naming of the team and of Tony Fernandes’ team now called Caterham F1, Bahar says that he has extended the agreement with the Enstone based team from seven years to 10 years.
And as the cars are now called Lotus, with all the benefits that accrue from that, there is no need for such strong Lotus branding on the cars, so next year there will be less.
He describes the relationship with the F1 team as a “real partnership” in the sense that it goes beyond a sponsorship.
I asked him about the stories doing the rounds in F1 circles that either he was going to buy out Genii’s shares in the team, or that Genii was going to buy Group Lotus from Proton.
Bahar’s response was not to rule out share exchange or a sale one way of the other in future, but he was adamant that, “that’s not happening” at the present time.
