Scorching Festival Fun And A Podium Finish For The Evora Gt4!

The 2011 Lotus Festival was another big success this year. Under glorious sunshine thousands enjoyed the Elise Trophy and Lotus Cup UK races, as well as some fantastic on-track demonstrations of Team Lotus Formula One cars.

Most of the thoroughbreds were ran courtesy of Classic Team Lotus, including the freshly-restored 1990 V12 102, originally campaigned by Martin Donnelly.

Martin Donnelly competed in his first works drive for Lotus since his Team Lotus days, sharing the first Evora to enter Lotus Cup UK with factory driving guru Gavan Kershaw. Taking pole position and the win, they beat round two winner Mark Fullalove, who finished eleventh after a rushed pit stop handed him a two lap penalty.

A full grid contained World Series by Renault driver Oliver Webb, sharing a 340R with David Harvey, and both were in contention for third until they were handed a similar penalty to Fullalove, ending up nineteenth. This gave the Open class win to Pat McBennett, the Irishman enjoying a return to Lotus racing. 2-Eleven class drivers Steve Williams and Pete Storey joined the winners on the podium, whilst David Seear was the Exige Cup winner, after a rear suspension failure put paid to Jamie Stanley and Glenn Sherwood's race.

The Production class was claimed by Ken Savage, giving him consolation for losing out on the Elise Trophy wins.

The next round of LoTRDC racing takes place in a week's time as Lotus Cup Europe supports the FIA Formula Two Championship at the Nurburgring.