A day before Group Lotus unveils its new models at the Salon de l’Automobile in Paris, rival Team Lotus (or rather Lotus Racing until it becomes Team Lotus next year) says that it has signed a five-year contract with Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne.
“Having started the team from scratch with Tony it was always my intention to finish my career here, so it’s great to have formally agreed a five year deal,” Gascoyne said. “I’m extremely grateful to everyone involved in Lotus Racing for having the confidence to take this into a long-term contract. We’ve had a great start to our partnership together, and I’m looking forward to continuing that for the next five years, and even beyond that.”
Team Principal Tony Fernandes says he is delighted.
“This shows just how serious we are, not only about how far ahead we are setting our aspirations, but also as a reward to Mike for the incredibly hard work he and the team have already put in to get us from literally four people back in September 2009 to our current position as a serious F1 player with a very bright future ahead of us,” he said. “On a personal level, I’ve really enjoyed the last year that we’ve been working together, and I’m very excited about working with Mike for many years to come.”
Bizarrely, Gascoyne features in a video that has been released about Group Lotus’s motorsport aspiration. Included in the footage of classic F1 Lotus cars is a 49 being driven at the Classic Team Lotus festival at Snetterton… by Gascoyne. You can click here for this and to hear more about Group Lotus’s supposed motorsport plans,
Hopefully the Group Lotus Paris announcements will include something about the source of the capital to fund Dany Bahar’s grand plans. There will inevitably be scepticism until they do.
Car magazine say the new investment is £770million over 10 years. Frankly, it stretches credibility to suggest that Proton will fund this themselves after starving Lotus of investment for the previous 10 years.
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Never seen this guy before… but he looks like a cross breed between Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher… he actually sounds like Schumacher….
I think the entire thing will come down to a sound financial settlement in favour of Fernandes.
I would not be surprised if this entire thing is staged…. Geneva motorshow coming up…. big stir created in the press… lots of people will be going to see what will be announced at Lotus in Geneva…
Both Bahar and Fernandes will realize that carrying on with this will kill “Lotus” brand image..
So is all hyped up. Big beneficiary is Lotus… be it Team, Cars, Group etc.
jmv,
You are way off the mark.
Well spotted about Gascoyne driving the 49. I also noticed the Evora GT car in the video is driven by Jarno Trulli, back in the days when Group Lotus and Lotus Racing were new friends. There’s even a brief shot of the Lotus Racing logo on a flag. Hopefully heads will be banged together and all this Lotus v Lotus business will be over soon!
And good work on the blog – always has an insight I haven’t seen elsewhere.
David
I forsee a mess.
Hi Joe, good link and always good articles to read. Do you know where the money is coming from to support such an ambitious project(s)? Never has a company invested so much in different motorsport categories so quickly. I can only see problems in the long run for such an ambitious plan, unless the Malaysian government is bankrolling this whole operation… Which in itself is just plain silly.
Glad he is staying – always good to have stability in the second year and hopefully they can start picking up a few points. I think they have done very well this year.
Great stuff. The Tony and Mike show rolls on whichever Lotus guise its under.
I’ve seen the link, its all a bit pie in the sky, is Gillett involved?
Most observers in the know seem to think Tony has it under control and it will all work in his favour. That can only be good for Lotus.
Hey joe
Any chance of a piece on why Mike Gascoyne is so well regarded? I’ve been following F1 for 3 years, and I don’t know a huge amount about him, but when I started he was working for Force India, then moved to Lotus this year. I’ve seen him on the BBC and he seems like a nice guy and gets on well with EJ, DC etc but what has he done to be held in such high esteem by people? Seems almost as well respected as someone like Adrian Newey, but everyone knows how he earned his stars.
Thanks!
marcus,
Mike Gascoyne has turned several teams into winners over the years. He may not have been there when the success happened, but he was the man responsible for Jordan’s victories and for the Alonso years at Renault. If he has a sensible team owner he can work wonders. The problem is that sometimes people do not want to listen to him because they are frightened of what it costs – and so on – so this is why Toyota and Force India never made it. He is aggressive in his approach and this causes problems, but he’s a good man, who knows what he is talking about, and was trained at the feet of Harvey Postlethwaite, which is a good recommendation for anyone. Harvey did not suffer fools.
very interesting, i had no idea.
Thanks!
Bahar and Lotus. Faint echoes of Delorean? Time will tell.