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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Tough Decisions Pending By The Series, Lotus, Its Teams
Lotus confirms in a SPEED.com exclusive that two of its teams have asked to switch manufacturers, but is it what the series needs and will it be allowed?
Would INDYCAR be best served by forcing its disgruntled Lotus teams and the manufacturer to reconcile their differences, or to let them part ways effective immediately? (Photo: Marshall Pruett)
IndyCar fans have been treated to arguably the three best opening races in series history, but at the back of the grid, a much more serious—and far less pleasant—concern has finally reached its boiling point.
With three rounds completed, the bulk of the Lotus-powered teams have been mostly invisible in the final results, experiencing one gut-wrenching problem after another. And with no timetable for when things might improve, the majority of the teams have come to the same conclusion: We’ll be out of business by year’s end if things keep heading in the same direction.
Dragon Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais was a revelation at St. Petersburg and again at Barber, performing minor miracles with his Lotus-engined car, but the marque’s steady rate of engine foibles and failures has caused patience to run thin among its four teams and five drivers.
The complaints from the teams, surprisingly, haven’t been centered solely on the quality of the engines provided by John Judd’s Engine Developments Limited firm, but rather the quantity of 2.2-liter, twin-turbo V6s being made available for testing, among other disagreements going on behind the scenes.
The conflict between Lotus and its teams reached a fever pitch when the marque informed its entrants that engines would not be made available for the April 4th test at Indianapolis, leaving Bryan Herta Autosport, Dragon Racing, HVM Racing and Lotus DRR in a very awkward position.
With the prospect of showing up to Indy next month with zero miles of testing on the Lotus engine around the 2.5-mile oval (not to mention teams starting IndyCar’s most important event with no laps of testing at the Brickyard on their Dallara DW12s), some of its teams have now filed breach of contract paperwork with the manufacturer.
A dispute between the manufacturer and those teams regarding the exact wording and obligations in their supply contracts has ensued, but the message being sent is clear: showing up late and unprepared for IndyCar’s Super Bowl is a surefire way to perform poorly, to possibly miss making the show and, when all is said and done, to kiss their sponsors goodbye.
With Indy serving as the one big draw for sponsors—both in prestige and television ratings—Lotus’ teams have had to think long-term, and with the 500 looking like a disaster waiting to happen, the most demonstrative tool to get the attention of the manufacturer and the IndyCar Series came with the breach filings.
Asked what the best-case scenario would be to come out of the breach of contract notices, one owner said receiving permission from the series to switch to a different engine manufacturer was the ultimate goal.
Will Phillips, INDYCAR’s VP of Technology, holds the authority to allow said changes, but declined to comment when asked if he would permit any of the Lotus teams to change manufacturers during the season.
From a procedural standpoint, each team has a contract directly with their engine manufacturer, and even if both parties agreed to sever a supply contract, INDYCAR still maintains jurisdiction over whether changing to another brand would be allowed.
In a follow-up e-mail on Wednesday, Miodrag Kotur, Lotus’ Director of Motorsports Operations, confirmed that “We have also [have two teams], who would like to switch to another engine supplier, but it is still in discussion with us.”
Based on informal discussions with this writer, the series does not appear to be in favor of granting permission for those two teams to leave the Lotus camp.
To give some additional context to that scenario, the two Lotus teams would rather spend an additional $1 million to get a Chevy or Honda engine--which will have an increased engine pool size after Indy--and forfeit the money they’ve already paid to Lotus than to stay with their current supplier.
Whether you fall on the side of the teams or Lotus in this dispute, the fact that two of the more modestly funded teams are willing to take a major financial hit to get away from Lotus speaks volumes about the severity of the problem from their vantage point.
In a half-hour interview just before Sunday's Long Beach Grand Prix, Kotur fired back at a variety of comments, accusations and questions regarding his employers.
“Since the beginning of the year, there’s a lot of rumors that Lotus is not doing well, that Lotus will not be around, that Lotus will not be at Indy, that Lotus is not able to make the engines…as far as I know we are here…we did not miss any races,” he said. “Obviously, we are a little bit behind from our competitors; we are working very hard with Judd to reach the same level [as] Honda and GM. It is not easy. Those guys are in the business since years at Indy, especially Honda. We are new, and start six months later. I don’t know why and from where these rumors are coming that we are in breach of contract. I would like to know where is the breach of the contract.”
After informing Kotur that the breach of contract issue was no longer a secret, and that missing the Indy test seemed to be the catalyst—the point of no return for some of his teams--he offered a more credible response.
“The teams obviously they complain about this test we haven’t done, but there is some reason--to be able to secure future races, we prefer to keep the engines and to work on them and to continue to develop the engines than to go to this test," he admitted. "Obviously, it would have been better [to be] there, but this is a decision we have made. And if you go through the contracts, there is nothing saying we have to participate in all the tests. If we had been told to be present at this test by INDYCAR because it was mandatory, we would have been present, but it was not.
“I am in motorsports [for many] years; obviously the more you are testing, the better it is. I don’t want to say we are confident going into Indy without testing on the oval, especially Indianapolis. Maybe if we went there [to the IMS test], maybe we would today have some struggles with the engine. It will be one month for us to have enough engines to be very comfortable, it will be a little bit problematic, but we aren’t in any way in breach of contract.”
Kotur also offered a blunt assessment of the teams Lotus is partnered with, and although it appears he forgot that Bryan Herta Autosport won its first race of 2011 (the Indy 500 with Dan Wheldon) and was running fourth (with Alex Tagliani at Las Vegas) when the second race was cancelled, the Yugoslavian’s sentiment was no less impactful.
“Herta, Dreyer, HVM…they cannot also expect to be at the front of the grid,” he said. “Even last year, they were not at the front of the grid. You find the same people at front, Penske and Ganassi. So we not only have to work on the engine, we have to work on the car. And also to work with [Lotus’ teams] on the car. We ask them, ‘Where can we help you?’ I don’t want to say that in one month things will change completely, but slowly, we have improved. By the end of the year, the gap will be completely closed.”
With three rounds completed, the bulk of the Lotus-powered teams have been mostly invisible in the final results, experiencing one gut-wrenching problem after another. And with no timetable for when things might improve, the majority of the teams have come to the same conclusion: We’ll be out of business by year’s end if things keep heading in the same direction.
Dragon Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais was a revelation at St. Petersburg and again at Barber, performing minor miracles with his Lotus-engined car, but the marque’s steady rate of engine foibles and failures has caused patience to run thin among its four teams and five drivers.
The complaints from the teams, surprisingly, haven’t been centered solely on the quality of the engines provided by John Judd’s Engine Developments Limited firm, but rather the quantity of 2.2-liter, twin-turbo V6s being made available for testing, among other disagreements going on behind the scenes.
The conflict between Lotus and its teams reached a fever pitch when the marque informed its entrants that engines would not be made available for the April 4th test at Indianapolis, leaving Bryan Herta Autosport, Dragon Racing, HVM Racing and Lotus DRR in a very awkward position.
With the prospect of showing up to Indy next month with zero miles of testing on the Lotus engine around the 2.5-mile oval (not to mention teams starting IndyCar’s most important event with no laps of testing at the Brickyard on their Dallara DW12s), some of its teams have now filed breach of contract paperwork with the manufacturer.
A dispute between the manufacturer and those teams regarding the exact wording and obligations in their supply contracts has ensued, but the message being sent is clear: showing up late and unprepared for IndyCar’s Super Bowl is a surefire way to perform poorly, to possibly miss making the show and, when all is said and done, to kiss their sponsors goodbye.
With Indy serving as the one big draw for sponsors—both in prestige and television ratings—Lotus’ teams have had to think long-term, and with the 500 looking like a disaster waiting to happen, the most demonstrative tool to get the attention of the manufacturer and the IndyCar Series came with the breach filings.
Asked what the best-case scenario would be to come out of the breach of contract notices, one owner said receiving permission from the series to switch to a different engine manufacturer was the ultimate goal.
Will Phillips, INDYCAR’s VP of Technology, holds the authority to allow said changes, but declined to comment when asked if he would permit any of the Lotus teams to change manufacturers during the season.
From a procedural standpoint, each team has a contract directly with their engine manufacturer, and even if both parties agreed to sever a supply contract, INDYCAR still maintains jurisdiction over whether changing to another brand would be allowed.
In a follow-up e-mail on Wednesday, Miodrag Kotur, Lotus’ Director of Motorsports Operations, confirmed that “We have also [have two teams], who would like to switch to another engine supplier, but it is still in discussion with us.”
Based on informal discussions with this writer, the series does not appear to be in favor of granting permission for those two teams to leave the Lotus camp.
To give some additional context to that scenario, the two Lotus teams would rather spend an additional $1 million to get a Chevy or Honda engine--which will have an increased engine pool size after Indy--and forfeit the money they’ve already paid to Lotus than to stay with their current supplier.
Whether you fall on the side of the teams or Lotus in this dispute, the fact that two of the more modestly funded teams are willing to take a major financial hit to get away from Lotus speaks volumes about the severity of the problem from their vantage point.
In a half-hour interview just before Sunday's Long Beach Grand Prix, Kotur fired back at a variety of comments, accusations and questions regarding his employers.
“Since the beginning of the year, there’s a lot of rumors that Lotus is not doing well, that Lotus will not be around, that Lotus will not be at Indy, that Lotus is not able to make the engines…as far as I know we are here…we did not miss any races,” he said. “Obviously, we are a little bit behind from our competitors; we are working very hard with Judd to reach the same level [as] Honda and GM. It is not easy. Those guys are in the business since years at Indy, especially Honda. We are new, and start six months later. I don’t know why and from where these rumors are coming that we are in breach of contract. I would like to know where is the breach of the contract.”
After informing Kotur that the breach of contract issue was no longer a secret, and that missing the Indy test seemed to be the catalyst—the point of no return for some of his teams--he offered a more credible response.
“The teams obviously they complain about this test we haven’t done, but there is some reason--to be able to secure future races, we prefer to keep the engines and to work on them and to continue to develop the engines than to go to this test," he admitted. "Obviously, it would have been better [to be] there, but this is a decision we have made. And if you go through the contracts, there is nothing saying we have to participate in all the tests. If we had been told to be present at this test by INDYCAR because it was mandatory, we would have been present, but it was not.
“I am in motorsports [for many] years; obviously the more you are testing, the better it is. I don’t want to say we are confident going into Indy without testing on the oval, especially Indianapolis. Maybe if we went there [to the IMS test], maybe we would today have some struggles with the engine. It will be one month for us to have enough engines to be very comfortable, it will be a little bit problematic, but we aren’t in any way in breach of contract.”
Kotur also offered a blunt assessment of the teams Lotus is partnered with, and although it appears he forgot that Bryan Herta Autosport won its first race of 2011 (the Indy 500 with Dan Wheldon) and was running fourth (with Alex Tagliani at Las Vegas) when the second race was cancelled, the Yugoslavian’s sentiment was no less impactful.
“Herta, Dreyer, HVM…they cannot also expect to be at the front of the grid,” he said. “Even last year, they were not at the front of the grid. You find the same people at front, Penske and Ganassi. So we not only have to work on the engine, we have to work on the car. And also to work with [Lotus’ teams] on the car. We ask them, ‘Where can we help you?’ I don’t want to say that in one month things will change completely, but slowly, we have improved. By the end of the year, the gap will be completely closed.”
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