Kovalainen took a tour through the manufacturer’s production facilities, followed by one of the Classic Team Lotus workshops, with Clive Chapman (son of Lotus founder Colin Chapman) as a guide before testing the Evora.
Unsurprisingly, the Lotus F1 team’s star was also used for internal PR, as his presence at the factory was a joy for the employees.
“Group Lotus is very proud of its racing pedigree and we are all very excited to share our story with Heikki. Says Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus,“It was our honour to welcome Heikki to Group Lotus and we wish him and the Lotus F1 Racing team every success for the 2010 F1 season,” Dany Bahar continued, “We take great pride in the sports cars that we produce at Hethel and Heikki’s visit provided a great opportunity to show off the multi-award winning cars that we produce and the advanced niche production facilities at Hethel,”
After putting the car through its paces, Kovalainen described the experience: “The Evora was everything I expected, Lotus is famous for fantastic sports cars and the Evora did not disappoint. The power to weight ratio gives the car a real racecar feel and allowed me to really push the car round the track. I enjoyed every lap and had fun sliding it sideways!”
We can say that, to some extent, this is a deja-vu for the Evora, as in the past few months former F1 drivers Jack Villeneuve and Martin Brundle together with Kovalainen’s 2010 teammate Jarno Trulli visited the site and took part in photoshoots with the new coupe.
Lotus is determined to perfectly place the Evora on the market as this is the company’s first entirely new car in a long period of time and many responsibilities rest on its sexy shoulders.
P.S. Is the fact that the shade of blue featured on the tested Evora matches Kovalainen’s eye color a random thing or have the PR guys at Lotus been trying a bit too hard?
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