Lotus Shakedown & Testing a Success

Indianapolis, Ind. (January 18, 2012) - Lotus HVM Racing, the Lotus test team and Swiss driver Simona De Silvestro completed a successful shakedown of the new 2012 Lotus-powered Dallara DW12 on Thursday, before beginning more in-depth testing of the 2.2 liter, twin-turbo V6 engine on Friday at Palm Beach International Raceway in West Palm Beach, FL.

After two full days of testing over the weekend and turning 300+ incident free miles in West Palm Beach, the Lotus team packed up and moved to Sebring for additional testing on Monday and Tuesday. 870 miles were run over the combined sessions.

Driver Simona De Silvestro was extremely happy with her time in the new car. "I think it was really a good four days," she said. "We ran a lot of miles. We did a lot of laps. I've never spent so much time in a race car. We started tweaking on the race car just to see what it liked. It was a really positive test and to be part of the first laps on the Lotus engine... I learned so many things right there. These guys have been really open and showed me everything and we worked really well together which was really cool. I can't wait to get back in the car again."

De Silvestro isn't the only HVM Racing member that was happy with the results of the testing. "We're very satisfied with the way everything went," said team manager Vince Kremer. "I feel like we made good solid strides. Simona put some solid laps in and the engine ran flawlessly. We exceeded what our original parameters were and we're looking forward to the next test in a few days. I can't emphasize enough how well the collaboration with the three teams and the engine supplier went."

Lotus IndyCar Manager Olivier Picquenot was equally pleased with the initial testing. "This was the most successful test I have ever participated in," he said. "We achieved more than I expected. The quality of the engine is perfect. We're very pleased from a technical aspect on behalf of Lotus and Judd. I would like to thank Simona for her fantastic job during the 4 days. She was smiling all the time and was very good at giving feedback to the engineers to progress in our development. Hopefully the rest of the tests will be as successful."

As the first driver of the three team collaborative group (HVM Racing, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Bryan Herta Autosport) working with Lotus to develop the new engine, Simona will have her next opportunity to drive the car again in February. Lotus test drivers Alex Tagliani and Oriol Servia will share driving responsibilities with Simona in the scheduled tests in February and March. Simona will be present to join her engineers and team members at the upcoming tests in Homestead and again in Sebring.

For additional information, please contact Trish Donovan at tdonovan@hvminc.net.

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
For further details on Lotus Motorsport and Group Lotus please visit our dedicated media site www.lotusnewera.com using the following details:

User name: media
Password: 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.