Lola designing F1 car

UPDATE In a story first broke here at AutoRacing1.com weeks ago, now comes word from autosport.com that Lola has admitted to them their interest in designing an F1 car, what they did not admit to them is that a design is fairly well progressed as we reported. We are bumping this rumor up to 'strong.'

"We have had close consultations with several F1 teams that are ongoing," a Lola spokesman told autosport.com on Tuesday. "The release of the entry list didn't change anything and we are still pressing ahead with our plans.

"We've got the facilities for a serious F1 operation, and our wind tunnel is still used by F1 teams when theirs is out of commission for any reason.

"However we are unable to announce anything more at this stage."

Lola's owner Martin Birrane told Autosport last week that he believed the interested parties were serious in their efforts to move into F1 and that his company was confident it would be more successful than its last foray into the sport.

"We're entirely serious about this," he explained. "There's no way we want to embarrass ourselves.

"We're one of the few companies who can do the whole lot in terms of building a car for a new team and we'd be absolutely delighted to go ahead and do it. It's natural for a company of Lola's reputation to be in F1."

04/04/06 According to AutoRacing1.com sources, Lola is quite far down the road to designing a Formula One chassis for a high profile customer. Whether or not this is for one of the recently announced teams (Prodrive, Pollock, BCN, etc) we are not sure, but it would seem that it is real and to be ready for 2008, as the major suppliers have signed confidentiality agreements.

Also, Lola's wind tunnel has been used by several F1 teams recently. Sauber, and Minardi/Scuderia Toro Rosso are just two of them. Their technical facility and design capabilities have recently undergone significant upgrades in readiness for the F1 build.

The only other details we have are that they also have a sub-site that is acting as a Special Projects division and we believe that this is supplementing the project. It was recently used for making composite panels for a major automotive manufacturer.

The two main people involved from Lola's side are its Managing Director – Rupert Manwaring (ex Lotus/Brabham/Minardi) and also Julian Cooper (Chief Designer and ex Benetton and RML).