Formula One fans will be forgiven for being a little confused next season when the grid forms for the opening race in Bahrain. You see there will two teams on the gird, both called Lotus-Renault. One will be painted green and yellow, the other black and gold. So how did this extraordinary situation arise?

First a bit of history. Lotus was originally founded by Colin Chapman in 1952 and there were two separate parts – Lotus Cars which built models such as the Elan, Europa and Elite, and then Team Lotus which competed in Formula One, winning many Grands Prix and world championships with drivers such as Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti. After Chapman’s death in 1982, the company carried on but went into liquidation in 1994.

Lotus cars was acquired by Proton and has gained renewed success with its Elise and Exige models. Last year, an Indian businessman named Tony Fernandez wanted to bring the Lotus name back to Formula One and so acquired the rights from Proton to call his new team Lotus Racing. The team gained an entry in this year’s F1 grid and have competed under that name all season using the traditional green and yellow of the the old original Team Lotus.

During the year though there was a change of management at Proton and the new man in charge, Dany Bahar, decided that he wanted to use the Lotus name in motorsport to promote the road cars, so he terminated the agreement with Lotus Racing with effect from the end of this year. This is where it starts to get complicated though.

When the original Lotus company went into liquidation, Proton only bought Lotus Cars. The rights to the name ‘Team Lotus’ which was the Formula One team, was acquired by David Hunt, younger brother of 1976 world champion, the late James Hunt. Fernandez, wanting to continue to race under the Lotus name, approached Hunt and an agreement was reached whereby he would operate next year under the name ‘Team Lotus’, arguing that it had always been a separate entity to Lotus Cars. In addition, he signed up to use engines supplied by Renault next year, instead of the Cosworth engines which had been used this season.

The people at Proton were not amused though and threatened legal action. They were already setting up a sports car team to enter events such as Le Mans and wanted to expand their motorsport presence. As a result, they have purchased a share in the Renault Formula One team (see where this is going?) and next year the cars will therefore be known as Lotus-Renaults. Proton-Renaults just wouldn’t have the same ring to it.

They have decided to run in the evocative black and gold which Team Lotus used in the early seventies when it was sponsored by John Player and the cars were known as John Player Specials.

There is still a lot of legal wrangling going on in the background but at the moment it looks as if next year there will be a team called Team Lotus using Renault engines and another called Lotus-Renault.

Formula One just gets sillier and sillier sometimes.