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Lotus HVM Racing Has Difficult Weekend at Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

Long Beach, CA (April 15, 2012) - After the solid run at Barber, the Lotus HVM Racing team was confident that they would continue to improve at this weekend's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Unfortunately, that's not how it played out.
With a crash in practice on Friday morning and a wash-out of afternoon practice, driver Simona De Silvestro only recorded a handful of laps in the #78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy car Friday. Things didn't improve on Saturday. A water pump issue kept the Swiss driver off track during morning practice and she was only able to finish three laps in qualifying before a different issue sidelined her.
Frustrated, but hopeful the team was still optimistic that they could put together a strong car for the race. It looked like they were right all the way up until lap 74 of the 85 lap race. The car was running well, De Silvestro was driving hard and the crew teamed up for three great pit stops, but, with only 11 laps to go the engine failed.
"I'm really disappointed," De Silvestro said. "It wasn't a fun weekend at all. We had issues in practice and qualifying and only ran like six laps total going into the race, so we were excited to be running such a great race. We had good pit stops and only 11 laps to go when we lost the engine, so it's really frustrating."
De Silvestro and her crew impressed guests from sponsors AREVA, Holtec and Entergy that were in attendance this weekend. She had moved up in track position and was poised to have a top 12 finish at the track where she scored her first Atlantic Championship series win.
"A very frustrating weekend considering we did three laps in the dry," said team owner Keith Wiggins. "We didn't really get any running in because of various issues, so to have the place we had in the race is a credit to the crew, we did good stops and had a really good strategy going. Clearly we had a 10th or 11th place. To get so far and then for the engine to give up with 11 laps to go is extremely disappointing because we really needed the points and she was driving a fantastic race. It was more frustrating because it looked like it was all going to come together in the end, but we'll have to move on."
Wiggins is echoed by team manager Shane Seneviratne. "It's was a pretty tough weekend from the start, but we recovered from it. We were having a great race and Simona did a good job driving. The crew did some awesome pit stops. It was unfortunate that we lost our motor. We just have to look forward to Brazil now."
The team heads back to Indy tonight to prepare for their next race in Sao Paulo, Brazil were De Silvestro has led laps before. The race will air NBC Sports on April 29, 2012.
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.
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