Oh Danny Boy
June 8, 2012 by Joe Saward
So Dany Bahar has been ejected from Group Lotus, and not before time. What happens to him is of little further interest in the F1 world. One can but hope that he gets whatever he deserves when the mess of Lotus Cars is unravelled.
I suspect that when it comes to history, he has assured himself the role of the man who killed Lotus – a footnote in history like Nathuram Godse or James Earl Ray. Perhaps that should be “the man who was allowed to kill Lotus” because behind the Bahar bullshit were people who were supposed to know better, who had a responsibility to Malaysian taxpayers not to waste the country’s money on daft schemes.
And this was a daft scheme from the start. For me Bahar was an automotive Icarus, who flew mindlessly towards the sun in a balloon of hot air, supported by a flawed set of wings and surrounded by simpering yes-men. The wings of this unrealistic vehicle melted and down he went. It remains only to see the result of the impact when he hits the ground. His contract has a parachute made of millions of dollars bills, but I feel this will fail to deploy. If he was going to be paid off it would have been done quietly…
The bad news is that in doing all this Bahar has done irreparable damage to the Lotus brand, which has become a joke in industry circles of late. The Malaysians say they will try to save it, but it may now be beyond repair. Tony Fernandes, who fought for the name a year ago, no longer wants it, having committed himself to a different route to achieve his aims.
The odd thing now is that we have a number of different entities with different rights to use the Lotus name. Perhaps Gerard Lopez can turn the scrambled brand into something again with his racing team, but it may be that the best he can hope for is to sell Lotus merchandise on the back of the racing.
Perhaps one day that might lead to a new generation of Lotus cars, but that seems a distant hope.
It is a tragedy that such a great name, the legend built by Colin Chapman, Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Mario Andretti, Ronnie Peterson and Ayrton Senna, was brought to earth by a snake oil salesman, with insufficient juggling skills to keep all the balls in the air.
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/oh-danny-boy/
