Finally! We now have more information about Malaysia’s upcoming 1Malaysia F1 Team that will be part of next year’s Formula 1 grid. The most important part of the update, is the actual name of the team. It will carry the name Team Lotus, instead of 1Malaysia, and the Lotus brand (owned by Proton) will be licensed to the 1Malaysia F1 Team Sdn. Bhd. company. Proton also plans to go into technology transfer, own marketing rights and create employment opportunities as well.
The Malaysian Government has no equity directly or indirectly in the team, and the team will be funded by a group of companies including Litespeed (which submitted an application to join Formula 1 next year under the name Team Lotus), Naza, and the Tune Group, run by Tony Fernandes, current team principal. Petronas, a very familiar name in Formula 1 (BMW Sauber’s sponsor), is expected to join the team via its Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (a Petronas university in Malaysia), which will collaborate with the team together with UTM (University Teknologi Malaysia – a state owned university) to help develop future Malaysian engineers.
A company called Composites Technology Research Malaysia (CTRM) will also be involved in the team. The Malaysian-based (92% owned by Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance and 8% by Petronas) company produces composite materials for companies like Airbus and Lotus (composite body shell for Lotus Europa S). Team Lotus will be run by Litespeed. Litespeed is an F3 team that is founded by Nino Singh Judge and Steve Kenchington, both ex-Lotus employees. As revealed earlier, the team is expected to introduce its driver line-up by the end of next month. Source www.icars.sg
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