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As the rest of the paddock prepared for the Japanese grand prix, Lotus was locked out of its hospitality unit at Suzuka. That was the claim of the French publication L'Equipe, as the embattled Enstone team's next court date in London on Monday threatens to put them into administration. The buyout by Renault still appears to be tantalisingly close, but L'Equipe said that because Lotus has not paid bills to Suzuka for last year's race, they were not given the keys to building in 2015.
The report said Lotus had similar troubles in Singapore a week ago, where it had to rent furniture for the paddock after sea-freight bills went unpaid. "Certainly circumstances are forcing us to pursue a rather unusual approach to this season but we're getting near to a resolution," insisted deputy boss Federico Gastaldi this week.
Nevertheless, Pastor Maldonado is all signed up for 2016, while his current teammate Romain Grosjean is believed to have accepted an offer to switch to Haas-Ferrari. Asked when an announcement may be due, Frenchman Grosjean said only: "Soon." As for the rest of the paddock, they may all be affected by the weather in Japan this weekend, as all eyes are on a tropical storm called Dujuan that is threatening to become a typhoon. (GMM)
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Replies (4)
Login to replyBlack Book
Posts: 1,825
Let's hope they will survive!
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Poor Lotus. Awkward how little FOM has done to help the teams with a lesser budget. Too little has been done to late. Im pretty sure pay-drivers and schemes like Sauber pulled off with Van der Garde would've been quite redundant had caps on costs for gearboxes, engines and such been introduced earlier. I fear at least one more team will stumble before the end of 2016.
Black Book
Posts: 1,825
The Genii management is just rubbish!
khasmir
Posts: 893
It's a pitty for the team but you have to pay your bills.
And the current owners are also not helping since they don't want to put any more money into the team until the deal with Renault is done.