Lotus F1 apologizes for tweeting support for LGBT Olympians

Mon, 10 Feb 2014

The Lotus Formula One Team is apologizing after its official Twitter account posted this image of two men kissing in connection to the opening of the Winter Olympics on Friday, February 7. It claims that the original tweet was "unauthorized."

The tweet, which Lotus deleted later that day, can be viewed to the right and was promptly replaced an apology that said, "We would like to sincerely apologise for an unauthorized message posted on our Twitter account today & will ensure this cannot happen again." Responses to the kerfuffle on its Twitter page have mostly focused on confusion as to what the original tweet was and why it was removed.

While the Sochi Olympics have been controversial among LBGT groups because of Russia's laws banning so-called "gay propaganda," the country has a growing importance in F1. In fact, the first Russian Grand Prix is scheduled to run later this season on a circuit around the Sochi Olympic Park. Genii Capital, the team's owner, has business interests in Russia, and according to the BBC, the Lotus F1 team is working on a deal to with Russian mobile phone company Yotaphone to sell it 10 percent of the team.

The Lotus team's twitter account is known for being quite different in the F1 world. Where most team's official Twitter accounts push out little more than press releases, Lotus is more playful. For example, after the announcement of double points in the last race this season, it published its own list of comical rules changes. This time, it appears that its free spirit ran afoul of sponsors.

By Chris Bruce