Is it a Lola or is it an Aston Martin?

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That's the question many are asking this week following a heated exchange of words between Aston Martin Racing and racecar constructor Lola, over what Prodrive's new Aston Martin-powered Lola should be called.

It all started last Friday when Aston Martin chairman David Richards invited members of the media for a tour of the Prodrive facilities where two of the cars are being built up. Richards stated that the Lola has undergone a "radical redesign" by Aston Martin Racing.

"The basic tub and crash structure are Lola, everything else is ours," Richards was quoted in an Autoweek.com story. "Last year’s car was a bit of an ugly duckling; we’ve tried to turn it into a swan."

Richards' words angered Lola, which issued a formal statement this week on the matter:

"Following a number of inaccurate and misleading quotes given by the Aston Martin Chairman David Richards, regarding the supply of the Lola LMP1 chassis to Aston Martin Racing for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours and Le Mans Series programme, Lola has decided to set the record straight.

"The Lola Aston Martin is a Lola designed and built car. It is not a ‘radical re-design’ as stated by Aston Martin Racing. Aston Martin has undertaken some body styling cues that required some CFD work to try to reinstate the Lola Aero performance and minor bespoke mechanical changes to accommodate the styling changes. Lola has spent over two and a half years in the research and development of this state of the art car costing several millions of pounds.

"Aston Martin contracted with Lola in December 2008 to buy our cars because they knew that as a result of the 2008 performance that we had the leading LMP1 customer car and Aston Martin didn’t have the time to develop their own car. When Aston first mooted rehomologation of the Lola car and was given the cost of their contribution to IPR and R&D the negotiations broke down. It is completely inappropriate that Aston Martin should now attempt to achieve “ownership” through misrepresentation in the media.

"Lola’s binding contract with Aston Martin is for two cars the nomenclature of which under the contract is that the cars must remain Lola Aston Martin."

This topic was discussed in detail on Wednesday's Midweek Motorsport radio show, with a number of auto racing journalists giving their input into this issue. Here are my thoughts:

It appears Aston Martin Racing has indeed put a considerable amount of work into the Lola to create a unique image for the brand. However, most of that stems from bodywork changes, and not the critical components such as the suspension and chassis itself.

The car is still homologated as a Lola. Aston Martin Racing elected not to go through the process for it to become a pure "Aston Martin" due to alleged financial reasons. Therefore, it was entered in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Le Mans Series as a "Lola Aston Martin."

It's obvious that both companies want to take credit for this new and exciting project. But from these public statements, it's clear there's some friction between the two British firms. Will that go away when the cars hit the track? Probably not. Could it impact the future of this project? Possibly.

It's not a good sign to have executives in a war of words before the car even hits the race track. Let's hope that things get ironed out and the results will speak for themselves.