Jump to content

litp.jpg

Lotus in the Peak
27th - 29th June 2025
  • Welcome to Midlands Lotus Owners Club (MLOC)

    Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to contribute to this site by submitting your own content or replying to existing content. You'll be able to customize your profile, receive reputation points as a reward for submitting content, while also communicating with other members via your own private inbox, plus much more!

    This message will be removed once you have signed in.

JonS
JonS

F1 Driver Heikki Kovalainen Tests His First Lotus.

F1 driver Heikki Kovalainen visits the home of Lotus Cars to meet the Lotus family and choose the scheme for his personalised Lotus Evora.

 

 

 

 

It was a real thrill for the Lotus workforce to see Lotus F1 Racing Driver Heikki as he was given a personal tour of the production facilities yesterday, and even more exciting for those few employees who got a rare chance to be driven by the F1 star as he tested the Lotus Evora on Lotus' own test track for the first time.

 

 

 

During his day with Lotus Cars Heikki was given a special tour of the Classic Team Lotus workshops by Clive Chapman, son of Lotus founder Colin Chapman during which he chatted to Clive and Engineer Bob Dance about their first hand experience of some of the most successful and iconic F1 racing cars of all time. The tour was steeped in Lotus history and included some of the F1 cars that helped Lotus to achieve 79 GP wins, seven constructor's titles and 6 drivers' championships, including Emerson Fittipaldi's Type 72.

 

 

 

Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus plc said, "Group Lotus is very proud of its racing pedigree and we are all very excited to share our story with Heikki. 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."

 

 

 

Heikki was not on Lotus soil long before he was behind the wheel of the Lotus Evora trying it on for size on Lotus' own test track and 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 went on to say, "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 every one at Lotus for a great day, it was an honour to meet Clive Chapman and learn more abut 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!"

User Feedback

Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.



Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Adventures of an S1 Elise in Germany

    Some of you will know, but for the rest, I'll be working in Germany near Mannheim until end of 2026 with 75% of my time there, and 25% back home. As i fancy doing some different roads, and I've booked two weekend driving tours with Delightful Driving company (run by Elisa Artoli), on Thursday 10th July I'll be setting of in my S1 Elise, and 4 days later I plan to arrive at my apartment. I plan to post about my driving adventures over there, so keep an eye on this blog should you be int

    Badger02
    Badger02
    Touring

    Exige V6 - Rear tyres

    Rear tyres will need changing fairly soon.................... My Exige is currently fitted with 265/35R18 rears.  The Sport 380/410/430 are fitted with 285/30R18.  Would there be any benefit in going with a bigger profile rear tyre?  I'm just looking at some options.  Cup2's are proving difficult to find.

    Guido
    Guido
    Technical Talk 7

    Formula One

    Any F1 fans on this forum? Let's discuss anything about the sport here.

    Maddox
    Maddox
    General Talk 20

    Please Post your Lotus in the Peak Pictures

    Hi All Please Post your LitP pictures for all to enjoy  

    Elisemadray
    Elisemadray
    General Talk

    Elise S3 Brakes

    The brakes on my Elise 240 FE never felt brilliant but at 2.5 years old in the cold and wet did nothing when pressed, a few pumps later and some braking happened. I took it in and the pads (oem from new) were glazed. I replaced them with Pagid RS42 and updated fluid. Difference was night and day.  Now, a year and maybe 3500 miles on and the pedal feel is a little wooden again (like can brake light or hard but nothing in between) and they are squealing really bad at town driving  speeds and lig

    Trebor_UK
    Trebor_UK
    Technical Talk 16
  • MLOC classifieds

    There have been no adverts submitted yet

  • MLOC garage

  • Member Statistics

    4,444
    Total Members
    1,800
    Most Online
    mattlawson76
    Newest Member
    mattlawson76
    Joined
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Terms of Use