Lotus plays down Force India 'spy scandal' reports

Lotus on Tuesday distanced itself from claims it is involved in a new formula one 'spy scandal'.

It emerged last November that Force India was concerned a wind tunnel model of new team Lotus' 2010 car strongly resembled its own 2009 racer.

Silverstone based Force India once worked at the Aerolab facility, leaving behind a scale wind tunnel model.

Mike Gascoyne, originally with Force India, now works with Lotus, the Malaysian-backed outfit that also made use of the Aerolab facility.