After a promising 24 Hours of Le Mans, Lotus began the second phase of their programme, which is to move up the order to reach Porsche, Ferrari, BMW and Corvette at the top of the GTE category.

On Sunday, 12th June at 3pm, the Lotus #65 passed under the chequered flag of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in seventh position in GTE ... Quite a feat considering it is a new team against 16 competitors in class. Having emerged from the Hethel workshop on 7th April, the Evora was born into competition even though one of the two cars involved in La Sarthe could not finish the race. "At Imola, I want to see both cars cross the finish line", announced Jan Kalmar programme manager. "We learned a lot in France, particularly in terms of reliability ... and I bet it will be the same at Imola. "

For their third appearance in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (not at Sebring), the two Lotus were totally revised and reassembled. However, the scheduled timed between  French and Italian rounds did not allow the team to install all the changes desired. So it will not be until the next race (at Silverstone in September) to see the benefits of the updates.

This does not preclude Jan Kalmar expecting significant improvement this weekend at Imola, "This time, drivers can push the car to its limits, they could not do at Le Mans because of the length of the race. We still have a good room for improvement. "

#64 JETALLIANCE LOTUS - Lotus Evora - Slingerland (NLD) / Rich (GBR) / Lichtner-Hoyer (AUT)
#65 JETALLIANCE LOTUS - Lotus Evora - Rossiter (GBR) / Mowlem (GBR) / Hirschi (CHE)

6 hours Imola will be held from 1st to 3rd July. For ticket information, click here.

Julien Hergault

Photo: 24 HOURS OF LE MANS, RACE, 27 June 2011. Two Lotus Evora will be at the six hours if Imola starting on Sunday at 12:00.