Heikki Kovalainen, the famous F1 driver has tested the award-winning sport coupe Lotus Evora at the Lotus Cars' own test track. After a short walk through the brand's production facilities and a special tour of the Classic Team Lotus workshops by Clive Chapman, son of Lotus founder Colin Chapman, Lewis Hamilton's ex-teammate Heikki Kovalainen made an exclusive test run of its first Evora.

Undoubtedly, the exclusive F1 guest was a big thrill for the Lotus workforce, and even more exciting for those few employees who got a rare chance to be driven by the F1 star as he tested the sporty Lotus Evora for the first time.

"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 the test run, Heikki commented "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!"

He continued, "The day has been great, I was really excited to see so many happy, motivated people and the support of the Lotus workforce is very much appreciated, I really got a sense of the passion the people have for the Lotus brand."

Heikki concluded, "I'd really like to thank everyone at Lotus for a great day, it was an honour to meet Clive Chapman and learn more about his legendary father and to see Lotus' classic F1 cars.  I'm really keen to drive one of the JPS cars and maybe will be at Lotus again sometime soon to drive the Type 72!"

Heikki Kovalainen and his custom Lotus Evora

Lotus Evora (2010)
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