The 500th Grand Prix race for the "Lotus" brand name
In 2010, " Lotus " as a brand name officially celebrated its 500th GP outing in Valencia on the occasion of the European GP. It all began with the Type 12 at the Monaco GP in 1958, and a story was recently presented about its successor, the Type 16 , which was presented in the same year.
With Colin Chapman, the founder and head of the Lotus team, a total of 79 GP victories were achieved. Colin Anthony Bell Chapman died of heart failure in 1982 at the age of 54. Peter Warr and later Peter Collins took over the reins of the racing team until 1994, when the towel was finally thrown in.
In 2011, two independent F1 teams competed in the F1 World Championship under the name "Lotus". "Team Lotus Renault GP" and the "Team Lotus" of the Malaysian Tony Fernandes revived the melodious name "Lotus". The Malaysians started the 500th race of the brand in Valencia, and Clive Chapman, son of the late company founder, had the first of his own racing cars flown to Spain for a photo.
Unfortunately, Fernandes' great wish of achieving the 80th victory for Lotus was never fulfilled. Instead, "Team Lotus Renault GP" took two more victories, but these cannot be counted as part of Chapman's team's tally.
The legal dispute between the two "Lotus" teams lasted a whole year. As Chapman's "Team Lotus" and "Lotus Cars" were two different companies and went their separate ways legally, the two new teams each referred to one of these companies. The "Lotus Renault GP" team referred to "Lotus Cars" and the Malaysian team referred to the former British F1 "Team Lotus". On May 27, 2011, a British court confirmed the Malaysian team Lotus as the rightful user of the famous name. Nevertheless, Fernandes in turn changed the name to "Team Caterham" in 2012.
The picture (above) shows 50 years of motorsport history. The Type 16 looks almost like a soapbox next to the modern monoposto, while the unsuccessful racer of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen shows the state of the art at the time.
