Lotus, perhaps the most active and lovable Formula 1 team on major social media platforms, has recently uploaded a rather controversial image on its official Facebook and Twitter pages with a caption that read: “Ahead of the opening ceremony, we would like to wish all athletes a successful 2014 Olympic Winter Games #Sochi2014”
The image, which you can see in this link, is in support of gay rights activists who have been holding protests across the world against the Russian government – which has condemned Russia’s gay community and banned the distribution of information about homosexuality to children – prior to the start of the Winter Olympics in the southern resort of Sochi.
However, the ironic part is that Lotus Formula 1 team owner Genii Capital agreed to sell a stake in the squad to new Russian backer Yota Devices Company a couple of weeks ago, and now the same team is implicitly attacking the Russian government.
So what does that mean for Lotus? Either the guy who posted the picture gets sacked, Lotus is frowned upon by the gay community and the Russian backers stay, or the guy stays, Lotus gains popularity among the gay community and the Russian investors leave.
What was Lotus (or the guy who works for them) thinking? God knows. What we know is that someone is in deep trouble at the moment.
“We would like to sincerely apologise for an unauthorized message posted on our Twitter account today & will ensure this cannot happen again.”
Now, we’re not sure what they mean by “unauthorized message”, it can be two things: their account had been hacked when the picture was posted or the employee posted the picture without approval. Other teams take note.