Lotus set to announce Formula One drivers at end of November

16 October 2009, 08:04:43

• Team wants 'best drivers available'
• Jarno Trulli linked with Malaysian team

Lotus, who will re-enter Formula One next season under Malaysian ownership, could delay announcing their drivers until the end of November. The team's chief technical officer, Mike Gascoyne, said the two drivers would be revealed within the "next month and a half".

When the team was awarded a spot on the 2010 grid last month, officials predicted the drivers would be announced by 31 October, from a short list of six candidates.

"We'll take the best drivers that are available," Gascoyne said, after meeting possible crew recruits in Kuala Lumpur. "I think although we are a new team, several quite experienced drivers are quite interested in us."

Local media has speculated that Jarno Trulli could join the team when his contract with Toyota runs out at the end of this season and that the other driver could be Malaysian.

Gascoyne did not comment on the possibility of hiring Trulli, but said it had not been decided yet whether one of the drivers would be Malaysian.

"We'll have a Malaysian driver in the car, when a Malaysian driver … is capable of performing at the level, at the top of Formula One," Gascoyne said.

Gascoyne said he hoped Lotus would at least beat the other three new F1 teams and compete with two or three of the more established teams. The car is predicted to be ready in the second week of February.

"You have to be realistic … short term, we have a huge challenge in front of us to produce a car for the first race," he said. "The start of the season will be pretty difficult … [but] we certainly don't intend that the 1Malaysia F1 team will be the team in the back."

Gascoyne said 30 designers were working in Norfolk on the car.

Lotus has been out of F1 since 1994. The team is funded by a partnership between the Malaysian government and a consortium of Malaysian businessmen under the team principal, Tony Fernandes, who is the owner of the budget airline Air Asia.

Gascoyne said the team hopes to employ 220 engineers and move its base to a purpose-built facility at Sepang International Circuit, home of the Malaysian grand prix, by the middle of 2011.