01/02/2011
NEWS STORY
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Who would have ever thought it? Two teams with the same name in Formula One: Lotus Renault and Team Lotus. But of course there is a crucial difference between the two - Lotus Renault has the involvement of the Lotus car manufacturer behind it. But whatever you do, don't call it a co-owner of the team.
After initial reports that the manufacturer had bought Renault's 25% stake in its Oxfordshire-based team reports started appearing stating that Lotus had only become the title sponsor. We were told that, in fact, the 75% owner, Gravity Racing International - the Luxembourg-based company believed to be owned by businessman Gerard Lopez, has taken over Renault's stake. We say that it is believed to be owned by Lopez because it is hard to confirm this.
Company documents for Gravity Racing International reveal that its owners are two Luxembourg-based companies - Espasande and Ikodomos. The latter is connected to Lopez' business partner Eric Lux and it is hard to trace the owner of the former since it is itself owned by two Panama-based companies, called Woodhenge and Xen Investments. Nice and transparent then. And it gets better.
The team's driver Robert Kubica has been quoted as saying "I think Lotus is our sponsor. At least from what I know it is a sponsor." Pitpass' business editor Chris Sylt is not so sure. The UK company which runs the team has today filed a document showing that Dany Bahar, chief executive of the Lotus car manufacturer, has been appointed as a director. If the manufacturer has no ownership of the team then why would he have been appointed?
There are four F1 teams with title sponsors which have no ownership in the racing outfit yet none of these has a director on its board who comes from their title sponsor. Sylt has analysed thousands of F1 documents and can not recall an occasion when a manager representing the title sponsor sat on the board of the team except for occasions when the sponsor had a stake in the team. This doesn't mean to say that it is impossible, just that it seems unlikely.
Bahar doesn't work for Gravity so it is hard to imagine that he could be representing it on the board of the team. Again, it's not impossible but it seems unlikely. However, if Gravity is the only shareholder then who is Bahar there on behalf of? Maybe time will tell.