Proton ensured it laid down all the cards before subsidiary Group Lotus put pen to paper in taking back to Formula One next year with the Renault team.
Lotus Group’s involvement as the title sponsor for the now renamed Lotus-Renault GP team stems from the 25 per cent stake they bought over from Renault itself. Proton itself confirmed an amount of between RM75 and RM100 million from the pre-approved advertising, marketing and promotions (AMP) budget for Group Lotus that will be allocated for the use in Formula One next year.
However, the amount used to acquire the 25 per cent stake in the team was not disclosed as Proton Chief Executive Officer Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Tahir and Chairman, Datuk Nadzmi Salleh, were contractually bound not to disclose.
The move stems from Lotus’s move to use motorsports as an AMP vehicle, apart from the group’s transformation of their sportscar business.
Syed Zainal and Nadzmi, together with Group Lotus’s Chief Executive, Dany Bahar, that was present through a video conference, explained the move in detail during a press conference on Friday.
“It's not about having Malaysian involvement in F1. This is purely a business decision for Group Lotus. As a parent company, Proton was very cautious in analysing all details before coming to an agreement,” said Syed Zainal.
All parties were quick to point out that Proton itself would not be having any association with the Formula One team.
“The budget was already allocated by Group Lotus for its AMP much earlier. We can't say that if we take it away, we can spend it on making more cars, it doesn't work like that,” added Syed Zainal.
Bahar went on to clarify that the group saw motorsports as the bang for the buck when it came to the best use of their AMP budget
“I don't agree too much where you buy space on television and pay a certain sum to appear for a few seconds and then it is gone. We want to be in control of the exposure and benefit more from it. By associating ourselves and being involved as a title sponsor and partner, we have access to the technology and some control over it, which would then allow us to benefit by bringing that technology into our road cars,” said Bahar.
Up to this point, Lotus has had extensive involvement in the GP2 and GP3 series, as well as producing a GT4 version of its Evora for racing. The group also had a Le Mans endurance programme running. All of those racing programmes fell under the banner of the same allocated budget.
Regarding the legal issue of the use of the Team Lotus name in Formula One, Nadzmi had this to say, “On the legal issue, it is going to court, so I can't say much. I only maintain that people want to see the real Lotus back in F1 and we are the real Lotus. We are not entering F1 because of any reason other than that it would benefit Group Lotus in terms of exposure and technology.”
