{"id":20814,"date":"2014-01-27T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=20814"},"modified":"2014-01-27T07:00:38","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T12:00:38","slug":"lotus-in-contact-with-whitmarsh-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/lotus-in-contact-with-whitmarsh-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Lotus in &#8216;contact&#8217; with Whitmarsh &#8211; source"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Deposed McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh could switch to Lotus for 2014, an insider has confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>Lotus&#8217; former chief, Eric Boullier, is the hot favourite to replace Whitmarsh at Woking, even though McLaren is not ready to confirm it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;New car but no boss&#8221;, read the headline at the weekend by the Spanish newspaper Diario Sport.<\/p>\n<p>A team spokesman was quoted by Germany&#8217;s Die Welt: &#8220;We are not talking at the moment about our management leadership.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, Lotus&#8217; team owner Gerard Lopez has said he is replacing Boullier, but some have questioned Lopez&#8217;s commitment to F1.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, the Luxembourger was spotted in the paddock only a handful of times in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Without going into detail,&#8221; Lopez told France&#8217;s RMC, &#8220;I had very serious health problems (last year).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not one to talk about my privacy, but I found it a bit hurtful to hear that my lack of presence was because I have no interest in F1 when in reality I was in a hospital bed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But this is the world of F1, where we do not seek to understand, we judge,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, speculation Whitmarsh is a leading candidate to be Lotus&#8217; longer term team boss is now rife.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There has been contact with Martin,&#8221; an insider with close links to Lotus told Britain&#8217;s Daily Mail newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is not necessarily the only name they have approached.\u00a0 There are perhaps three but he might be the most appealing of them, given his experience at McLaren.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deposed McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh could switch to Lotus for 2014, an insider has confirmed. Lotus&#8217; former chief, Eric Boullier, is the hot favourite to replace Whitmarsh at Woking, even though McLaren is not ready to confirm it. &#8220;New car but no boss&#8221;, read the headline at the weekend by the Spanish newspaper Diario Sport. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[251,5262,5340,58,306,491,5284],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20815,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20814\/revisions\/20815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}