End of the road for Lotus?
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Ilta Sanomat reporting Lotus might not make the 2014 grid.
Sounds like they are making a big deal just because they have not confirmed they are using Renault engines.
I doubt it to be true. I would have believed it if they had signed someone without financial backing for their race seat. But after signing Pastor, which essentially guarantees somewhere around 30m sponsorship money, I do not think they would wind up in this manner.
I have said it before and I will say it again – the end of last season (and generally mistakes throughout) really cost them. They should have paid Raikkonen something and scored well in Abu Dhabi and possibly the final races (DQ from a good quali in Abu Dhabi didn’t help matters either).
Lotus 2nd (£80m), Mercedes 3rd (£70m), Ferrari 4th (£80m, for being Ferrari) would have helped them survive with an extra £17.5m prize money. Now that money is spread out to Mercedes and Ferrari instead, and they have had to take Pastor (perhaps they would have anyway to increase funding) to have a chance of surviving, as the Genii guys have second thoughts about how much money they have invested in the team so far. They want out now, to recoup their money, but all they have is Mansoor Ijaz. I’m still surprised they never landed a big sponsor, someone like Honeywell would have gotten a lot of exposure on their cars in 2013.
But I’ll be surprised if they aren’t on the 2014 grid, as that would make the team worthless. At least if they are on the grid it is a recoverable situation.
Ilta-Sanomat isn’t the most reliable F1-media in Finland, so I doubt this is nothing but their own speculation.
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