THE first key piece to the Lotus F1 team's Malaysian operations was put in place yesterday with the announcement of 38-year-old Riad Asmat as chief executive officer.
Riad, former general manager at Proton Holdings Bhd managing director's office, admitted his passion for motorsports as his main reason for taking on the highly challenging task of organising and managing the operations of the team.
The team that have a startup capital of RM168 million, and a total budget of RM308 million, will have Riad at the helm of marketing and operational areas as they push on for their much anticipated debut in F1 next year.
Riad has vast working experience in motorsports -- as a former employee of Sepang International Circuit and was a public relations executive with Nike.
“I see the responsibility as not just one single person but working with the whole team,” said Riad yesterday.
“It’s a big challenge and F1 is very competitive as it operates in an extremely challenging environment . In this respect, the focus will be on teamwork and its importance can never be overstressed.
“All of us in the 1Malaysia Racing Team understand that this is a very important first step for the nation.”
He is also confident that the team would be able to place the cars on the starting grid in the opening round in Bahrain next March.
“The building of the car is ahead of schedule by three days and we should be testing them next February at the Sepang Circuit,” he said.
Speaking at a press conference after the appointment, team principal Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes said the team have come a long way in just six months.
"There are a lot of sceptics out there. There were a lot of sceptics when AirAsia first started and Sepang International Circuit was built anyway and look what we've achieved," said Fernandes.
He said despite the pessimistic views, many were also positive that Lotus will win the world championship one day.
"We can dare dream that Malaysians will one day wake up to see our local drivers in a Ferrari or a Renault," said Fernandes.
He added that the team have their eyes on six drivers but will keep the list on hold till the end of November before they finalise it.
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