De Silvestro Gains 10 Positions to Finish 17th at the GoPro Indy GP of Sonoma

Sonoma, CA (Sunday, August 26, 2012) -The Swiss driver of the #78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy car, Simona De Silvestro, drove a mistake-free race moving up 10 spots from her starting position of 27th to finish 17th in today's GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. The 85-lap race was past the mid-way point before the first yellow flag of the day.

While De Silvestro was happy with the result, she would have liked to have done even better. "I guess P-17 is okay," she said, "I think it was all we could get. We're still getting passed like we're standing still on the straightaways, but, I think it was a good weekend. We kept our head in it during the race and toward the end the yellows starting coming out. That really helped us with our fuel mileage. It was a good race."

The Lotus HVM Racing team did their part with good pit stops and a race strategy that worked perfectly. Team engineers were forced into a very tight three-stop strategy due to the fact that we get a significantly lower fuel mileage in comparison to the other competitors.

Keith Wiggins, team owner, felt the team got the most out of the car today. The team did a good job," he said. "Simona drove a good solid race, so we were able to make the best of it. Our windows were tight on fuel, but we managed to keep it within the three, so that was good. It was a good result for the circumstances we had. We don't want to get too excited about 17th, but I think it was the best result we could get today with what we had."

The team hosted guests from Entergy, GE Hitachi and AREVA this weekend. Everyone had a great time and was excited with the final race results.

Team manager, Shane Seneviratne, was pleased with the team's work. "It was a good race," he said. "Simona drove well. The crew did very consistent pit work. There was a little bit of racing toward the end. Simona got to do some dicing, so I'm happy for the sponsors. We had a good result."

After the long yellow for the Bourdais / Newgarden crash, the field was separated so that cars on the lead lap were together and those that were one lap done were together allowing everyone a chance to race for position with the cars around them. De Silvestro was able to move past Ed Carpenter who was a position ahead of her, but who had not been running directly in front of her at the time of the yellow.

Tom Brown, team technical director, liked the league's decision. "She (De Silvestro) ran well," he said. "She maximized what was given to her. The guys did good stops; we've been working hard on that. We saw massive improvement this weekend. When they all bunched up it gave us a chance to race and we took it to them. I think we may have surprised some people. It was a good race."

The team now head to Baltimore for the Grand Prix of Baltimore presented by SRT which airs on NBC Sports Network, Sunday, September 2 at 2:30 pm ET. Follow Simona and the team on Twitter: @simdesilvestro and @hvmracing.

About HVM Racing
HVM Racing was founded by Keith Wiggins and is based in Indianapolis, Indiana. HVM enters 2011 as its tenth year of competition since forming in 2001 and has earned six victories, two pole positions, and an additional 16 podiums. They earned "Indianapolis Rookie of the Year" honors with driver Simona De Silvestro at the 2010 event and since joining the IZOD INDYCAR Series in 2008, the team has earned nine top-10 finishes. HVM finished fourth and third, respectively, in the Champ Car World Series in 2006 and 2007, and earned drivers Mario Dominguez and Robert Doornbos Rookie of the Year honors in 2002 and 2007, respectively. Follow HVM Racing at www.hvmracing.com, on twitter at www.twitter.com/HVMracing, and on facebook at www.facebook.com/HVMRacing.

About Lotus
Group Lotus plc, is based in Norfolk, UK, and has three operating divisions: Lotus Cars, Lotus Engineering and Lotus Motorsport.

Lotus Cars builds world class, high performance sports cars including the award-winning Evora, the iconic Elise and the stunning Exige and the road / track orientated 2-Eleven. Lotus New Era, the future product line-up, was unveiled in Paris on 30th September 2010 featuring the new Esprit, Elan, Elite, Elise and Eterne.

Lotus Engineering provides comprehensive and versatile consultancy services to many of the world's OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers and is an internationally recognised automotive engineering consultancy. Global facilities include those in the US, Malaysia, China and offices in Germany and Japan. Lotus is a global high-tech company, committed to driving forward technology for both Lotus Cars and its Engineering clients, spearheading research into such areas as hybrids, electric vehicles and renewable fuels.

Lotus Motorsport operates the motorsports activities of Lotus and includes the strategy to return the Lotus name to a great number of series including endurance racing with GT2, GT4 and LMP2, single seater racing with GP2, GP3 and IndyCar. Lotus has also returned to F1 with Lotus Renault GP from the start of the 2011 F1 racing season onwards.

For more information about Group Lotus please contact:
PR Department, Group Lotus plc, Potash Lane, Hethel, Norfolk, UK, NR14 8EZ
Tel: +44 (0)1953 608264 Email: pr@lotuscars.com

About Entergy
Entergy is the second largest owner and operator of U.S. nuclear energy plants. They operate or provide management services to 12 reactors at 10 sites. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity and delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $11 billion and more than 15,000 employees. Follow at www.NuclearCleanAirEnergy.com and www.entergy-nuclear.com; on Twitter at www.twitter.com/EntergyNuclear and www.twitter/NuclearCleanAir, and on facebook at www.facebook.com/Nuclear Clean Air Energy.