Lotus Evora GTE for ILMC

Lotus Evora GTE for Intercontinental Le Mans Cup

[QUOTE]Lotus Take on Le Mans with Jetalliance

Lotus Motorsport and Jetalliance unite to create GTE challengers Lotus Jetalliance

Under the careful direction of Team Manager Jan Kalmar, the newly formed Lotus Jetalliance team will field two Lotus Evora GTE cars in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (ILMC). The two Evora GTE race cars, currently being developed by Lead Designer Nicola Scimeca, will be put through their paces as the team tackles some of the most challenging and competitive endurance races including the six hour race at Spa, Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta and of course the world famous Le Mans 24 hour race.

Commenting on the announcement, Lotus Director of Motorsport Claudio Berro said: “Moving into the ILMC is an exciting step for us and it will provide a good opportunity to showcase what can be done with the Evora. In every motorsport discipline that we participate in we aim to pick the best expertise to partner with and we have very high standards. The Jetalliance racing team has a lot of experience and a respected pedigree in this field so we’re delighted that they have agreed to work with us on what is bound to be an incredible challenge. We’re looking forward to seeing what ILMC 2011 brings.”

Jetalliance Chief Executive Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer said: “We’ve enjoyed success in recent years at iconic endurance events such as Le Mans and I’m looking forward to repeating if not improving on these results with Lotus. Some people have asked why we would take a risk working with new cars - my answer on this subject always remains the same: we believe in Lotus and we believe that in uniting with them will create something very exciting, very special and most of all very successful.”
Lotus Jetalliance will be contesting the following events:

8th May 2011 Spa-Francorchamps 6 Hours (BEL)
11&12 June 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours (FRA)
3rd July 2011 Imola 6 Hours (ITA)
11th September 2011 Silverstone 6 Hours (GBR)
1st October 2011 Petit Le Mans (Road Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
12th November 2011 6-Hours race China

The driver line-up will be announced in due course.[/QUOTE]

[IMG]http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=347523&stc=1&d=1295398813[/IMG]

I think that is actually cool. Can this fight with the 'Vettes, Ferraris, Porsches, and BMWs? Doubtful... Maybe the Jag...

Its good to see Lotus getting back into its natural habitat: racing. Perhaps this Lotus may have an advantage on tighter tracks. As Kitdy kinda touched on though, the car might be uncompetitive in tracks like Le Mans, where there are many straights.

The Evora has a Toyota V6 out of the Camry, modified by Lotus, of course.

But then again, the Porsche Boxer 6 in the 911 isn't much bigger and the who knows if the Ferrari 458 will run a 4.5 V8 or do as on the 430 and run a 4.0 V8 to get air restrictor breaks. But then again, the 458 probably runs GT1-spec tires like most GT2/GTE cars do now, so trying for the smaller engine to get a weight/power break might be for naught here.

I think that the 3.8 911s might be the power bench mark here, but I think that most factory supported teams run the 4.0.

[quote=LHamilton_w;958100]Its good to see Lotus getting back into its natural habitat: racing. Perhaps this Lotus may have an advantage on tighter tracks. As Kitdy kinda touched on though, the car might be uncompetitive in tracks like Le Mans, where there are many straights.[/quote]

I think the car will probably be uncompetitive anywhere because it is up against heavyweights and it is new.

"heavyweights" ... :) .... might be it's saving grace if the dump all the lardy-ass stuff in the street car and amke it a proper lightweight Lotus :)

Personally, dont think it will do well on any fast tracks, wheelbase too short :(
But hoping it makes it up enough on the twisties to be competitive.

I like the 3D render and hope the car comes close to it.

[quote]The Evora has a Toyota V6 out of the Camry, modified by Lotus, of course.
[/quote]

I'm not sure what engine will be in the GT2 Evora, the GT4 version has a 4.0 litre... which there are no 4.0 litre Camry's, only 3.5. Unless they are aloud to punch them out to 4.0 that is.

Toyota does have 4.0 litre engines available in their SUV's and trucks.

From the list of races it's scheduled to enter i'd say the only place it has a chance to be competitive is Spa. I don't know what the Chinese track looks like but if it's anything like all the other modern built tracks i'm sure it has it's fair share of straights too. It'd be interesting if it entered the fray at Nurburgring though, that race is going to be epic already and this would make it even better

Why Spa? It has long and up hill straight also....it is very much a power track...

[quote=RacingManiac;958151]Why Spa? It has long and up hill straight also....it is very much a power track...[/quote]

It also has a lot of tight technical corners, what it loses on that straight it will make up throughout the rest of the track

[quote=Cobrafan427;958153]It also has a lot of tight technical corners, what it loses on that straight it will make up throughout the rest of the track[/quote]the majority of Spa is fast & sweeping

its "technical" in the sense that the corners are not basic curves . not that they are slow & tight

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Turns 1, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, 18 and 19 don't look fast and sweeping to me considering the scale of the map and the size of the straights