Rain Comes Too Late to Help Lotus HVM Qualifying Effort

Edmonton, AB (Saturday, July 21, 2012) - The rain came too late to help the Lotus HVM Racing team with qualifying. The #78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy car, while making progress, is still down on power compared to the other cars in the field and had hopes that the rain would prove the equalizer.

Unfortunately for Swiss driver Simona De Silvestro, her group's session was dry. "Well," she said, "it's really disappointing. We were hoping the rain would come a little earlier and help us out. The car is really good, but we're still down on power and that hurts here because of the long straightaways. Rain would have been good. I think we have a good car for the race. We'll just have to wait and see what the weather does. Hopefully we'll have a good finish."

The team qualified 23rd, but will likely start at the back of the field since they will incur a ten-spot penalty for an unapproved engine change prior to the start of the event. Lotus provided the team with a new updated engine, which members of the crew installed on Wednesday.

Team owner, Keith Wiggins, is hopeful that the new engine will lessen the gap to the other teams. "We continue to struggle, but we're still working on improvements. We're not giving up on it. We're still making small progress, but obviously the others are as well. I think the gap is less, but we still need more."

With three long straights on the 2.224-mile track and only a 10 percent chance of rain tomorrow, it looks like the team will have to focus on strategy and maximizing the setup on the car as the under-powered engine will continue to be an issue.

Tom Brown, the team's technical director, isn't counting on help from the weather. "We're working hard to maximize and get everything we can out of the car," he said. "The guys timed the qualifying to perfection. We had a good run, but three long straights here make it hard with some of the issues we have; top-line speed and whatever. We actually could do well. We ran well and gave it the best we could."

The Edmonton Indy airs tomorrow, Sunday, July 22 on NBC Sports at 2:45 p.m. ET.

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.