Team Lotus, which contested the 2010 season as Lotus Racing, will continue to race with a green and yellow livery next season having decided to abandon plans to run a similarly iconic black and gold livery.

As the Malaysian outfit continues its squabble with the Proton Group as to who has the rights to the Lotus name, its plans to run the iconic John Player Special style livery next season took a knock when Lotus Renault GP unveiled pictures of its 2011 livery this week... surprisingly, very similar to the iconic John Player Special colours.

However, rather than running in Player's Gold Leaf red and white or Camel yellow and blue, Tony Fernandes has revealed that his team will stick with green and yellow.

"Whether they copied us or we copied them that's beside the point now," he told Reuters. "The point is what makes sense. Having two Lotus brands on the grid I think is no issue. Having four black cars looking the same I think is silly and one has to relent. We're not childish and emotional and saying 'Oh no, we've got to be black and gold'. We're pragmatic."

Just months after Ferrari dropped the barcode logo from its cars - a move the team insists had nothing to do with claims by "leading doctors' that it was a subliminal advert for (sponsor) Philip Morris, manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes, Fernandes is mindful that the black and gold is also synonymous with a cigarette brand.

"There has been a lot of negativity about being associated with a cigarette brand," he said. "There was a strong lobby building up that we were promoting a cigarette brand. So everything happens for the right reasons."

Although he bought the rights to the Team Lotus name from David Hunt, brother of 1976 world champion James, Fernandes admits that he had hoped to continue running under the Lotus Racing monicker.

"I'm disappointed at the way things have turned out," he said. "We received a five-year licence agreement from Proton and Group Lotus to go into Formula One. The reason why it wasn't Team Lotus was because they clearly told us they didn't have the rights (to that name) so they gave us the licence.

"We initially called ourselves F1 Lotus Team but their lawyer said 'No, you can't use Team because David Hunt may injunct us. So we changed it to Lotus Racing. We thought we had five years to go out there and prove ourselves.

"My original aim was that somehow we would merge or do something together and co-exist," he continued. "Those plans all changed when Dany Bahar appeared on the scene. He had a very low regard for us," he added, referring to the overly ambitious Lotus Group CEO - formerly of Red Bull and Ferrari - who plans to takes Lotus Group into various forms of motor sport and is openly targeting the F1 title within five years.

"They have said that they will beat us on the track next year and I have no doubt that they will at the beginning of the season," said Fernandes. "But towards the end of the season, I think we will chip away and be closer and closer.

"We haven't acquired a team that was built up by a car company," he added, "we have built it from scratch and we think that adds more value and credibility to the brand. I think it's no secret that Dany Bahar wants to emulate Ferrari but Ferrari built everything from scratch. It is a racing team that became a car company and is completely integrated."

Looks like this one will run and run.