Day Ends Early in Baltimore for De Silvestro and Lotus HVM Racing

Baltimore, MD (Sunday, September 02, 2012) - The race started with the threat of rain; just the way the Lotus HVM Racing team had hoped. On lap one Simona De Silvestro, driver of the #78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy car had contact and pitted for a new nose. On lap six, she radioed that she had rain on her visor. The team chose to continue racing on the slick tires as the track was not completely wet and gambled that the rain would hold off a bit longer. On lap 19 a yellow-flag came out and De Silvestro pitted for her rain tires. It was a good call. Half the team's stayed on slick tires and half, like De Silvestro, changed to rain tires. Rain tires was the definitely the right choice as the rain got heavier and the track slicker.

On lap 21 De Silvestro suffered some front-wing damage, but the team decided to run with the damaged wing as long as possible to not lose position. On lap 22 the team called her in to rip off the broken part of the wing and changed back to red slick tires as the track had started to dry and the rain looked to be moving out of the area. On lap 24 she served a drive-through penalty for the incident that caused the damage.

Even with her earlier issues, De Silvestro was running 14th when she hit the wall ending her race. "Well, I'm disappointed because I made a mistake," she said. "I hit the curb in the chicane and it ended our day. Until then it was kind of a crazy race. We made some positions; we don't know where we would have finished. This time it's kind of my fault. It's a shame because we were doing really well. Now you just go to the next one I guess."

The incident happened coming out of the chicane. De Silvestro hit the second curb a little bit too hard and got airborne hitting the outside wall with the left-hand side of the car.

Team manager, Shane Seneviratne was disappointed as well considering how well De Silvestro has been driving this season. "It's obviously disappointing," he said. "Simona has driven great all year. She made a mistake here that put her out of the race. We had a couple of incidents earlier on, but they were small ones. The team changed the front wing out and we recovered from it. I'm disappointed for all the sponsors that are here and want to thank them for all their support. We'll do our best at Fontana."

Shane Seneviratne, HVM Racing team manager, was pragmatic about the qualifying session. "We had a good car and a lot of potential," he said. "Unfortunately the session was red-flagged with Rahal's crash which caught us out. We were on a good lap when that happened and if we'd have had the opportunity to finish that lap we would have qualified in the middle of the pack and even advanced to the next session. It's unfortunate; I think we have a good race car. We just need to look forward to tomorrow. "

Keith Wiggins, team owner, had high hopes for a good result since De Silvestro drives this track so well. "As the race turned out we had a pretty good opportunity," he said. "Like everyone else, we just needed to stay out of trouble. We looked quite good early. We had a solid strategy that was playing out, but we weren't able to stay clean until the end. It's just unfortunate that it ended that way."

Technical director, Tom Brown, agrees that De Silvestro had a good shot at a very strong finish. "It was becoming an interesting race," he said. "Multiple strategies were being played out among the teams. We were looking very good. Sim was pushing hard and got bit by the chicane around mid-way. As always we pushed and worked hard all weekend to keep maximizing what we had."

The team goes back to Indianapolis tomorrow before heading back west for the season finale in Fontana on Saturday, September 15th.

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.