Gascoyne Targets Top 10 Finish for Team Lotus in 2010

“The Bulldog” is finally back, and he aims to make his return an impressive one next year. Yes, we're talking about Mike Gascoyne, the man who sued Force India for terminating his contract before time at the end of last season. The Norwich-born Brit is now the head of design for newly-entrants Team Lotus F1 and has the mission to build a competitive F1 car in 7 months time.

Talking to British magazine Autosport about his new plans for the future, Gascoyne reckoned that Team Lotus' late entry in the 2010 Formula One Championship has added to the challenges of making his F1 return. With so little time to develop a functional, decent F1 machinery – considering he'll be starting from scratch – Gascoyne's target for 2010 seems to be a quite decent one: the best team from the newly-entrants by mid-season, a Top 10 finisher by the end of the year.

"Things are very tight. We are aiming at the second week of February for the roll-out, and we have got a huge amount of work considering we are starting from nothing,” said Gascoyne, according to the aforementioned publication.

“One of the good things with Tony Fernandes and the Malaysian backing is that it is a very well-funded thing. We have got a very big aero programme in place with Fondtech and Jean-Claude Migeot, and we will be expanding that. The first half of the season will be tight, but it is a great challenge,” added the 46-year old Englishman.

Gascoyne insisted that the new Malaysian-backed team doesn't have any plans to consider themselves the true “ancestors” of the famous Team Lotus in Formula One, but start a new road of their own in the sport.

“It (Proton and Lotus tie-up) brings a famous name back into F1, and it is a good story for F1. We are not pretending to be the old Team Lotus. We are the new Lotus F1 team,” added Gascoyne.