Wednesday 22nd June 2011

Nigel Mansell Opens New Lotus Test Track

F1 legend reunited with first F1 car at Hethel

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Lotus old stagers meet the young turks

F1, Indy, and (sadly not - yet!) Le Mans legend Nigel Mansell squeezed his legendary frame back into his first F1 car yesterday, before blasting it around the newly refurbished Hethel test track at its official opening ceremony.

Nigel's Lotus 81 has been newly (we think) restored to its original 1980 Essex Petroleum livery - a year later it went black and gold with JPS - and it was a genuinely evocative moment to see the great man reunited with the machine that gave him his start at the pinnacle of motorsport.

The Lotus 81 belongs to Classic Team Lotus, a company owned by Clive Chapman (son of founder Colin), and Nigel evidently remains on close terms with the Chapman family - Colin's wife Hazel was also there for the celebrations, and emotions at times seemed to be running high.

"Gnnn-mmmphhhh!!!"

Other racing celebs at the affair included former F1 star Jean Alesi who alongside Nigel has been signed up as a 'mentor' for Lotus customers buying into the T125 F1 experience programme.

Current Lotus-badged F1 driver Vitaly Petrov and test driver Bruno Senna were also on hand, as were Johnny Mowlem and James Rossiter who have recently returned from a successful 7th in GTE-Pro class result at Le Mans with the Evora - the company's first appearance there since the Elise GT1 in 1997. Evora GT racers Greg and Leo Mansell turned up for the big day too.

Also on hand to witness the event was the man from Malaysia who signs the cheques, Proton's boss Dato' Sri Syed. (And for the record, he was definitely smiling!)

A view of the new £10m test track

The newly refurbished test track at Lotus is 3.6km, will soon have 12 pit garages, and conforms to current FIA safety regs. It's the result of a £3m investment and we can't wait to have a go on it.

(We managed to capture a typical PH-quality phone-cam video of Nigel's getaway. Lotus promises there'll be a proper video on their website soon, so only watch ours if you're really keen...)

Warning - the following clip is in PHvideoramavision...

[MagicalTrevor]

Any details of the new track? Maps, overhead shots, etc?

[Bada Bing!]

Petrov drives for Renault, not Lotus. Does that mean Button is a current Vodafone driver?

[Zumbruk]

MagicalTrevor said:

Any details of the new track? Maps, overhead shots, etc?

Hope so. I'm sprinting there on 7th August. Be nice to see what's changed.

[RobM77]

Looks great! With this and the Esprit engine news story I'm beginning to think that this re-invention and the necessary funding is actually really happening!!

[The Wookie]

Zumbruk said:

Hope so. I'm sprinting there on 7th August. Be nice to see what's changed.

Some of the corners have been mildly reprofiled (the bottom hairpin for example is now a bit tighter on the entry than it was before and there's a kink in the straight with a proper chicane further down, rather than the tyres right at the bottom) but the overall layout is pretty similar. The main difference is that it's now a properly tarmac'd and barrier'd race track, one that you feel happier pushing hard on

[CTE]

My girlfried who works at Lotus told me about this yesterday and the drivers involved....she said is that good?!...bimbo!

[Ollieb7]

Thank god he finally gave it a bit of welly - i thought for a while he was just going to sit in it like a big jessie!

[Goodfella 555]

Quite enjoying Lotus week on PH, just hoping you can find an old Eclat / Elite or Excel for shed of the week!

[Turbobanana]

...And the award for most times "also on hand" can be squeezed into a story goes to...

[Essex Exile]

They've missed a trick in not releasing an Essex livery Elise

[Chris-R]

Turbobanana said:

...And the award for most times "also on hand" can be squeezed into a story goes to...

Yikes.

[AlexKing]

Bada Bing! said:

Petrov drives for Renault, not Lotus. Does that mean Button is a current Vodafone driver?

+1

Come on PH, sort it out. "Lotus - sponsored Renault team" or "Lotus Renault" if you absolutely
must...

[dukest]

a load of (Classic or otherwise) Team Lotus cars to celebrate the relaunch of their rival's sponsor's facility then?

[Gizmo!]

Please:

Either "Current Lotus-sponsored F1 driver Vitaly Petrov and test driver Bruno Senna"

Or "Current Renault F1 driver Vitaly Petrov and test driver Bruno Senna".

I'm not usually so pedantic about such things, but the court case is over and them's the facts.

[Oddball RS]

Shows how much i've kept up with this corporate cobblers, i thought they had the wrong current F1 car there???

Confused to hell............

[jackbarclay]

Very basic question, I'm sure, but how did these old F1 cars not understeer massively without any kind of front wing?

[orouge]

From what I could hear out in our garden yesterday I thought there was some interesting machinery 'testing' at Hethel. I hope they will all be on track for the parades/demos at Snetterton on Sunday.

[orouge]

jackbarclay said:

Very basic question, I'm sure, but how did these old F1 cars not understeer massively without any kind of front wing?

Lead boot on right foot.

[Dog Star]

jackbarclay said:

Very basic question, I'm sure, but how did these old F1 cars not understeer massively without any kind of front wing?

I was just going to post about that - that car should have a front wing.

However a quick google on mansell Essex lotus shows a couple where there is no front wing. Odd.

[BlackCup]

video looked very peeping tom-esq haha!