Lotus owner Gerard Lopez has revealed the team's gigantis debts of over £114 million, as further doubts were cast over the viablity of the Enstone-based team.

The co-owner of the Genii Capital Investment group that runs Lotus has rubbished rumours of the team's future, claiming that "most of the debts are internal".

Lopez has claimed that former number one driver Kimi Raikkonen - not paid his full £14.5 million salary in 2013 - "has received part of it, and will get the rest."

Lopez said: "We have around £114m of debt, of which more than £80m debt is with ourselves [Genii]. Why would we demand the repayment of these debts? That makes no sense.

"We reconciled the money as marketing expenses. At the moment, it is important that the team goes forward."

Lopez - speaking to the German press - admitted that a delay in Raikkonen's payment was due, in large part, to the failed partnership with US-middle Eastern group Quantum, with talks now over between the two groups.

Lopez said: "The budget gap from last season was again covered by us. The Quantum money never arrived. We have now killed the talks.

"For 2014, we will have at our disposal our new sponsor PDVSA's budget. We will not generate any new debt. Genii is still 98% owned by us."

Another blow for the team - which will line up with the new pairing of Pastor Maldonado and 2013 revelation Romain Grosjean for 2014 - is the loss of several techincal engineers ahead of the new campaign, including technical director James Allison, who joined Ferrari in September.

Lopez was again, ever the optimist. He said: "We have lost some engineers to the competition, but we got about five new engineers from them, from Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.

"This is the carousel of Formula 1. It operates according to the Darwinian principle - survival of the fittest."

On the plus side, Lotus are anticipating a much-needed financial boost from the hefty sponsorship money new driver Maldonado will bring, which will go some way to alleviating the cash-strapped outfit.

The 28-year old Venezuelan comes armed with tremendous monetary clout, in the form of his country's state oil company PDVSA. They are expected to be offering Lotus the sam £30 million that they provided Williams between 2011 and 2013.

Despite the team's confidence in their long-term future, it will be interesting to see what Lotus can do to stem the flow of money and personnel away from Enstone.

Talk is cheap, but operating a top F1 team is proving very costly for Lopez.