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Jonathan Hirschi joins Lotus Jetalliance for 2011

Last year, Swiss racing driver Jonathan Hirschi achieved some great performances in the FIA GT World Championship behind the Wheel of an Aston Martin DBR9 with the AMR Hexis Team. He managed to reiterate the same great results at the beginning of the year during the two rounds of the Andros Trophy. In 2011 he is driving in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. On this occasion he will drive a Lotus Evora with Lotus Jetalliance in the LM GTE Pro Category. This is a wonderful achievement for this racing driver who continues to evolve from season to season.

The ILMC is a new championship created by L’Automobile Club de L’Ouest to meet the demands of some big constructors wishing to have a championship regrouping of all the best Endurance races on different continents. Porsche, Audi, Peugeot, Aston Martin, Ferrari, BMW have all joined in this endeavour.

After a big comeback in Formula 1 in 2010, and in view of its fantastic track record Lotus again decided to join these Endurance races through the ILMC. This English racing car constructor has chosen to team up with the Jetalliance racing team for this championship.

Under the direction of team manager Jan Kalmer for Jetalliance and Claudio Berro Director for Lotus Motorsports, Jonathan will be a major player in the return of Lotus to the mythical circuit of Le Mans.

Lotus was created in 1948 by Colin Chapman. The team participated on 14 occasions in the classical Le Mans 24 hours race, but has never won the race.  Of the 41 cars which started the French classic, only 16 actually finished and the last Lotus to finish the race was a Lotus Elise in 1997.

Their first appearance in this discipline was in 1955 with the Lotus No.9 of Ron Fockhart and Colin Chapman at the wheel, in which they led, before being disqualified on lap 99.

In 2011 the ACO’s selection committee has invited two Lotus Evora GTE’s.  The car was designed by Nicola Scimeca and Lotus Motorsport and is based on the T124 GT4 (aluminium chassis, Cosworth/Toyota 440hp V6, six-speed sequential Xtrac gearbox).

 “It is a new challenge for me to be part of this championship with a new car and team. I am very pleased with this opportunity and hope to help the constructor Lotus Jetalliance achieve excellent results in their return to GT”.

Jonathan is already working hard on the development of the car and participated in the preliminary tests for the 24 hours of Le Mans that took place on the 24th of April 2011 on the Le Mans circuit.

2011 Calendar

6 hours at Spa-Francorchamps (Belguim), 7th May 2011
24 Heures du Mans (FRA), 11th & 12th June 2011
6 hours at Imola (ITA), 3rd July 2011
6 hours at Silverstone (GBR), 11th September 2011
Petit Le Mans (Road Atlanta, Georgia, USA), 1st October 2011
6 hours at Zhuhai (CHI), 12th November 2011