The Goodwood Festival of Speed has finished for 2019 and Lotus had cause to celebrate throughout the four days with memorable events and activities following the theme of ‘Speed Kings – Motorsport’s Record Breakers’.
Highlights included:
- The special Lotus Type 25/R6 F1 racing car, in which Jim Clark set the record time of 1:20.4 seconds for a lap of the Goodwood circuit in 1965.
- The new Lotus Evora GT4 Concept race car, making its dynamic debut at the Festival set some blisteringly quick times up the hill. Behind the wheel was Gavan Kershaw, Director of Vehicle Attributes, Lotus Cars.
- The full range of Lotus road cars – the Elise, Exige and Evora – on display and driven up the hill in the popular Michelin Supercar Run.
- The Lotus 72 (Chassis 5) was reunited with its legendary driver Emerson Fittipaldi for the first time since 1973. He had taken it to the drivers’ and constructors’ World Championship in 1972 and campaigned with it again in the 1973 season.
- Driving Graham Hill’s Lotus 49 (Chassis R10), was his grandson, Josh Hill (who is the son of the 1997 F1 World Champion, Damon Hill). This landmark car is the only F1 car to have won the Monaco GP twice – in 1968 and 1969 – and Josh drove it in the high-wing 1968 specification.
There was one other big draw on the Lotus stand. With only eight days to go until the global debut of the new Lotus Evija electric hypercar in London, hundreds of fans caught an early glimpse during a special sound and light show experience on the Lotus stand.
Phil Popham, CEO, Lotus Cars, said: “The Goodwood Festival of Speed 2019 will go down in Lotus history as one of the most memorable and exciting for many years. It was great to meet so many customers and fans of Lotus, to celebrate our unique heritage and give a tantalising glimpse of the future with the Lotus Evija.”
His Grace, the Duke of Richmond, and Formula 1 legend Emerson Fittipaldi also visited the Lotus stand, with the Duke commenting: “It is great to see Lotus back with such force with a fantastic stand and a very exciting hypercar tucked away in there.”
Summary
Eight legendary Lotus cars prepared by Lotus Cars and Classic Team Lotus drove the Goodwood Hill Climb at the 2019 Festival of Speed:
Lotus 18 – chassis 912
Lotus 38 – chassis R7
Lotus 49 – Chassis R10
Lotus 72 – Chassis 5
Lotus 79 – Chassis 2
Lotus Evora GT4 Concept
Lotus Exige Sport 410
Lotus Evora GT410 Sport
Notes to Editors
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About Lotus
Group Lotus is based in Norfolk, UK.
Lotus Cars builds world class, high performance sports cars including the Evora, Elise and Exige ranges of sports cars.
Lotus Engineering provides comprehensive and versatile consultancy services to many of the world’s OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers and is an internationally recognised automotive engineering consultancy.