F1 IN THE HIGH COURT
Looks alike?
Undisputed similarities between the Lotus T127 and the Force India VJM02 led the two teams to a High Court battle, which both claim to have won
BY SAM COLLINS
I
t would be unfair and inaccurate to say that the Lotus T127 of 2010 was based on the Force India VJM02 of 2009, but
it has now emerged that some elements of it were indeed direct copies, and the tale behind how it came about is a fascinating one. A recent judgement made
in the London High Court has revealed much of the background to the dispute, which has been rumbling on since late 2009. The story begins before the
team, which is today known as Caterham, was founded, and centres on the highly regarded Aerolab wind tunnel in Italy. Force India, then known as Midland, started to use the facility in late 2006, shortly after Mike Gascoyne joined the team as chief technical officer. Gascoyne knew the tunnel well, having used the sister Fondtech facility when he was at Renault, and Aerolab itself when he was at Toyota. Although Midland had its
own tunnel in Brackley, England, 30
www.racecar-engineering.com • May 2012
the largest model it could accommodate was 40 per cent scale. It was decided that to run a state-of-the-art Formula 1 programme, it would have to be upgraded to accept larger, 50-60 per cent models, which would involve taking the tunnel out of commission for several months. In the days before the resource restriction agreement, this was not an option. Lola’s proven wind tunnel in
Huntingdon was the obvious choice, but when the experienced
engineers ran Midland’s 50 per cent model, they discovered the tunnel could not take its weight, which caused problems with the data sampling system. Another solution was required. That solution was found in
Aerolab in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy. Opened in 2003 as a joint venture between Fond Tech and Dallara, it was capable of operating with up to 60 per cent scale Formula 1 models at a nominal test speed of 50m/s (180 km/h). Gascoyne believed
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