quote Lotus F1 team says time running out for Quantum deal By Jonathan Noble Friday, November 15th 2013, 21:16 GMT
Lotus owner Gerard Lopez says his team will not wait 'much longer' for new investors Quantum Motorsports to finalise its deal to buy in to the team.
Quantum chiefs announced at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that they had completed their part of an arrangement to purchase a 35 per cent stake in Lotus, with the matter only needing monies to be transferred to Lotus' bank account.
It is understood that those transfers have not been completed yet, despite hopes that matters would get finalised last week.
Although Lotus is still hanging on for Quantum money, Lopez made it clear on Friday that time was running out before it considers a different path for its future.
Speaking to AUTOSPORT about the Quantum situation in the wake of the announcement in Abu Dhabi, Lopez said: "It was their own initiative to announce that the deal was done. It isn't.
"We have always said that if we want to push we have other options. It has got to be the right partnership. That one seemed like the right one, but whether it is going to happen or not, I don't know."
Lopez insisted that Lotus had not yet given up on the Quantum deal being finalised, but equally admitted it could not just sit back and give the investors forever to get things sorted.
"It needs to happen eventually," he said. "If it doesn't? Well...right now we are just running things as they are for ourselves, and then we will decide [what to do]. But we are for sure not going to give it forever."
When asked how long the team could wait, and if it was true that the team had set an internal deadline of today for Quantum to get it matters in order, Lopez replied: "All I can say is it will not be much longer."
Although the financial boost that would be delivered from the Quantum deal would be a big boost to Lotus, Lopez insisted that the team's future was not dependent on it happening - and that it did not have to seek a fallback option.
quoteLotus F1 Team @Lotus_F1Team 16 Nov #F1 SCANDAL! It seems @WilliamsF1Team have kidnapped our 2014 #E22 prototype! What say ye of this @charlie_whiting? pic.twitter.com/LMQjxOwSyV
quote Williams F1 Team @WilliamsF1Team 16 Nov @Lotus_F1Team @charlie_whiting sorry about that! Its actually not the car, we're just hiding #Kimi in there. Doctors orders.. confinement
Poor Kimi
Paper is dead without words Ink idle without a poem All the world dead without stories Without love and disarming beauty
The Venezuelan signed a three year deal with Lotus this evening, according to our sources. The move ends months of speculation regarding the future of Lotus and Maldonado’s career.
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Quantum Motorsport was set to sponsor Lotus F1 Team, and one of their demands was to have Nico Hulkenberg part of their 2014 line-up. Quantum and Lotus couldn’t agree on the investment details, and the partnership was cancelled on Monday morning.
The team’s management held a final meeting with Pastor Maldonado and both parties signed a contract on Monday evening. PDVSA is set to become the team’s title sponsor. Rumors are that the sponsorship package includes a $40 million investment, thus securing Lotus’s future in Formula 1, at least for the next three years.
quotePitLaneTalk @ LOTUS F1 Pastor Maldonado secures 3 Year deal at Lotus, according to our sources. Quantum sponsorship fails to materialize. Full story soon.
This quantum thing is only hot air it seems I´m really happy, Kimi is away from Lotus
Paper is dead without words Ink idle without a poem All the world dead without stories Without love and disarming beauty
but i think gro will be no1...first of all, its true that he improved so much, and then hes Boulliers baby....
i read that the Pastor to lotus is not true, at least not yet. i myself believe it though....and i wait to sit on my couch with popcorn and enjoy it...
The Enstone based team have cultivated over recent years a ‘cool cat’ image on social media and the recruitment of Raikkonen out of retirement for 2012 enhanced this further. Though behind the hip front, it appears the Enstone has become one trauma after another.
Of course Genii executive Gerard Lopez is correct when stating, it was they alone who had the foresight to recruit a ‘has been’ F1 driver whose motivation was questioned by many in F1 – including those in Maranello. They took the risk – and in many ways it paid off.
Prior to Raikkonen joining in 2012, the team had been 5th in both 2010 and 2011 and were 8th in the WCC the previous year. So beating Mercedes and McLaren in 2012-13 to 4th place has been a credit both to the car design and driver recruitment policy.
However, all is not well behind the scenes at Lotus. Stories began to emerge that Kimi was not being paid during the season last year, though he was remunerated in full at the close of the year.
Further, details of Raikkonen’s 50,000 euro’s per point bonus became known and the reasoning behind the math amused many. Kimi scored 207 points in 2012 – a bonus of just over 10 million euro’s. Lotus beat Mercedes into 4th place and probably received an incremental 6m euro’s in prize money over that of the Brackley based outfit.
2012: Lotus 315 pts – Mercedes 122 pts meant that Romain Grosjean alone had guaranteed them 4th place above Mercedes.
Then there were the teasers from Enstone that a big new title sponsor was due for 2013 – which TJ13 dutifully played its part in reporting from ‘our source’. The Honeywell deal failed to come through and it remains a mystery today whether the agency handling the commission in fact ever had any contact with the US global brand.
More egg on the Genii/Lotus face.
Kimi won the season opener in Australia, and it all looked as though the project was on track, yet behind the scenes Genii had pumped in the money in as loans to the Enstone British corporation.
Genii like CVC are a private equity capital fund. Whilst they use the Lotus F1 brand to attract investors and to get a seat at the table for certain deals, they are bound to not lose gazzilions on the deal, and maybe even sell within 5 years for a profit.
Along comes known conman Mansoor Ijaz, who had allegedly attempted to broker ‘international negotiations’ to deliver the handing over of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to the US. He claims this would have been effected but for the fact that the US counter terrorism unit and national security advisors questioned his legitimacy.
Ijaz heads up a newly formed investment fund called Infinity Racing. It is believed to be a consortium of Eastern and Middle Eastern cash 60% of which was coming from a donor who wished to remain anonymous. Lopez later admitted in Austin the ‘unknown’ nature of an investor supplying 60% of more than $250m of investment was in fact part of the problem delaying the transaction – big surprise there eh?
Despite the ridiculous “Infinity” name, which TJ13 was the first to declare would cause a legal claim from Nissan-Renault, an announcement was made in June 2013 that 35% of the team would be sold to new partners.
This of course never happened and Infinity Racing quietly died and the phoenix from the ashes was Quantum Motorsports. In the meantime Kimi had been courted by Ferrari though intimated he would stay at Lotus were the inward investment guaranteed. The outcome, Raikkonen will be driving for the red team in 2014.
The team and their star driver then had a very public spat in India and Abu Dhabi which resulted in the ‘iceman’ having a public melt down with track side director for Lotus Alan Parmane. The following week Kimi revealed he had been paid ‘not one euro’ this year.
Kimi then went off ‘sick and the team needed an urgent replacement for Austin and Interlagos. The Hulk and M. Schumacher turned them down, so the decision was to recruit a driver with F1 race experience ahead of their GP2 winning reserve driver.
Just over a week later, this decision looks now to be a poor one. “I think the car is great,” said Kovalainen on Sunday, “but I was not able to unlock the pace. I was anticipating it would be easier to come back and race competitively.”
In the meantime, a disgruntled Davide Valsecchi has had his say and concluded yesterday, “I told the team it would have been better to choose my heart and my motivation than the experience of Kovalainen, I’m really sorry they didn’t do it.”
“Next week” has been the cry for some time now when either Lopez, Boullier of Ijaz have been questioned on the timescale for Genii concluding the Quantum purchase. The delays and subsequent leaks out over the sums of money involved have raised many questions regarding the legitimacy of Mansoor Ijaz’s intentions.
It was suggested to a shifty Eric Boullier at the FIA press conference in Brazil that even a simple google search revealed a number of dubious matters regarding the front man for Quantum. He replied less than convinvingly, “Fortunately we don’t have to base our judgement only on Google, with all respect to Google for what they are doing. To answer the question, yes, we have very serious proof of funds and good compliance of what is Quantum Motorsport”.
TJ13 was recently advised by an associate from an international investment fund that this deal in effect would value the Enstone based team at around $750m – and that was in fact ‘highly optimistic’.
Hulkenberg, the Boullier, Lopez and Ijaz preferred replacement for Kimi appears to have passed them by due to the undue delay in the investment funds arriving and further this weekend there have been whispers suggesting the Lotus team may not even be on the grid in 2014. This is unlikely, though It may be the case that the Genii investors behind Lopez have forbidden any further cash advancements.
So no more Genii cash and a phantom Quantum investment means the team will have around $90m from participation and prize money via FOM as a starting budget for 2014, prior to any sponsorship deals with Microsoft and Coca Cola and any other invisibles.
Maldonado’s pot of oil money – though reduced from its zenith during the Williams era – is believed to still be in the region of $25m and the team may now be looking desperately for another pay driver to bolster funds. Grosjean commented to German media when asked if he were to lose his seat next year in F1, “I’d probably go to DTM or sports cars”. Not exactly the confidence we heard from the Frenchman just a week ago.
It’s a shame the cool cats of F1 have been reduced to what looks like a bunch of headless chickens – cluttering up the paddock and confusing the driver market.
well, the fact is - Gro has no contract so far. So, by the numbers - they need Maldo and another guy who can bring millions of $ and it's not Gro. Sad, but true.
i feel for Gro - doing well, but locked from other teams in a possible dead end of the contract.
Looking into numbers: not something that i want to admit, but there is a possibility of - Lopez and Co didn't really believe in Kimi's successful comeback. they just wanted to cash in on his name. That's the reason for such stupidly generous 'points bonus'. They just never thought it would be that big. And their stupidity came back and bit their arses. I can be wrong, but it's a possible explanation.
Nomad, you're the rider so mysterious Nomad, you're the spirit that men fear in us
one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star - it's a satanic drug thing you wouldn't understand...
Well after the last few races RoGro deffo doesn´t deserve to be without a seat next year! =S
"Walk on, through the wind, Walk on, through the rain, Though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart, And you'll never walk alone, YOU`LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!"
Quote: Denorth wrote in post #611well, the fact is - Gro has no contract so far. So, by the numbers - they need Maldo and another guy who can bring millions of $ and it's not Gro. Sad, but true.
i feel for Gro - doing well, but locked from other teams in a possible dead end of the contract.
Looking into numbers: not something that i want to admit, but there is a possibility of - Lopez and Co didn't really believe in Kimi's successful comeback. they just wanted to cash in on his name. That's the reason for such stupidly generous 'points bonus'. They just never thought it would be that big. And their stupidity came back and bit their arses. I can be wrong, but it's a possible explanation.
Quote: Denorth wrote in post #611well, the fact is - Gro has no contract so far. So, by the numbers - they need Maldo and another guy who can bring millions of $ and it's not Gro. Sad, but true.
i feel for Gro - doing well, but locked from other teams in a possible dead end of the contract.
Looking into numbers: not something that i want to admit, but there is a possibility of - Lopez and Co didn't really believe in Kimi's successful comeback. they just wanted to cash in on his name. That's the reason for such stupidly generous 'points bonus'. They just never thought it would be that big. And their stupidity came back and bit their arses. I can be wrong, but it's a possible explanation.
Denorth, that's the only explanation!
seems they are such great managers they did not even cash his name...
Mr Lopez has spoke again. I´m wondering if he see the same season as me. Or maybe he is Why do the teams always kick in Kimis butt after he is leaving a team?
quoteFormula 1 - Lopez: praise for Grosjean, blame for Raikkonen
Remained below its potential
Gerard Lopez takes stock: Many things went well in 2013, but not all. Kimi Räikkönen was also not free from errors.
If Kimi Raikkonen would have take part at the last two races, the Finn would have finished third in the Drivers' World Championship. But in his absence he was overtaken on the final straight of Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton. Nevertheless Lotus were not one hundred percent satisfied with the Iceman. "Kimi is driven partly aggressive this season than the year before. Like the entire team, he has remained in some races behind his potential," said team owner Gerard Lopez in the Luxembourg newspaper "Wort".
For team-mate Romain Grosjean there is only praise: "He has confirmed what we have stressed for a long time: Romain is one of the best drivers in Formula 1 times, he was the only pilot who could keep up with world champion Sebastian Vettel!." Also was encouraging was the performance of the vehicle. That it was not enough for second place in the Constructors, Lopez returns for errors of the team.
"The second place was close enough to touch, but we have done too many mistakes, which is certainly disappointing. However, we can build on that we were able to use the second best Formula 1 car in my opinion." Things to see and be able to fight with the most prestigious racing teams, but would fill him with pride.
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Fri Nov 15, 2013 11:01 pm
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I´m really happy, Kimi is away from Lotus 
seems they are such great managers they did not even cash his name... 
