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Lotus denies financial trouble stories

Lotus insists it is still financially on track © Sutton Images

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The owners of the Lotus F1 team, Genii Capital, have rubbished reports the team is in financial trouble and struggling to pay members of staff.

Reports emerged during the summer break that Lotus has debts of €120 million and rumours started to circulate about the financial security of the team. But Genii boss Gerard Lopez said the team's accounts have simply been misunderstood.

"On the €120 million debt, anybody half-smart can find out that number by going to Companies House records and will see that out of that, over 90 million is not 'real' debt but shareholder loans made to the company," he told Autosport.

"The salaries have always been paid on time and there has never been even a hint of a potential strike by our people at the factory. We usually don't comment on these things, but in this case it's unfair on the people working in the company to be saying things like that."

Lopez said Genii's investment in Lotus had made it a much stronger team than the Renault outfit Genii bought in to in 2009.

"When we took over this team, it was eighth in the championship," Lopez added. "It had a 50% windtunnel, now it's 60%. The team didn't have a driver-in-the-loop simulator, it does now. It didn't have a gearbox dyno, now it has.

"So it has a bunch of things that it didn't have even as a works team. As they say in other sports, you do your talking on the field and I guess we do our talking on the track."

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