The Lotus
car company is a partner of the team and in October last year it was
rumoured that the marque’s Malaysian parent Proton would buy into the F1
outfit. However, this was denied and Boullier recently said that Genii has
“showed their commitment and they will commit in the future to financially
back this team”.
Räikkönen’s turbocharged performance last year gave Lotus the best value for
money of all F1
teams. It spent an average of $550,000 on each of the points it scored
compared to $680,000 for Red Bull Racing which won the championship.
Lotus’ latest accounts for the year-ending 31 December 2011 show that it
burned up a £20.8m pre-tax loss despite revenue accelerating 41pc to
£115.7m. Although its costs increased £12.1m to £134.4m this was a long way
off the £176.2m spent by Red Bull.