The Lotus Evora Cup Racer has been revealed at the Geneva motor show.
Last month, Lotus F1 driver Jarno trulli tested the car at Snetterton.
After driving the car Trulli said: "The car will continue to be developed with new updates coming soon, but even after the initial drive it is obvious that the car has huge potential."
Trulli, who will race for the Lotus F1 team this season, spent his time at Snetterton working with Gianluca Pisanello, his race engineer at the F1 team. Both are expected to be involved in further development work on the Evora later this season.
The Evora Cup race car will cost £120,00 plus taxes, and will be eligible for racing in the GT4 category and an innovative one-make Lotus Evora Cup.
The race car is powered by a 4.0-litre V6 with 'more than 392bhp' according to Lotus - the road car has a 276bhp 3.5-litre V6 powerplant. The racer also has a dry sump and Cima six-speed sequential paddle shift dog gearbox.
Other motorsport tweaks include adjustable dampers, six-piston front brake calipers and two piece aluminium belled brake discs, plus standard safety equipment.
The Dallara developed aero package includes a number of updated carbonfibre parts for greater downforce and improved cooling. It also helps bring the racer down to less than 1200kg - more than 200kg less than the production car.
The one-make Evora Cup series will employ an unusual structure; points will be awarded to competitors for entering events, and being in the top five competing Evoras to finish.
The season will then culminate in two Lotus Festivals, with provisional dates for Donington Park in the UK (16/17 October) and the second at Vallelunga in Italy (21/22 November 2010). All Evora competitors from around Europe will be invited to race at these festivals and there will be double points on offer.
The championship winner will be the driver who accrues the most number of points from a maximum of six races over the season, and a prize fund of 'at least 100,000 euros' (£89,000) is being offered.
In 2011, Lotus says it intends to introduce a pan-European one-make race series for the Evora Cup.
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Re: F1 star shakes down Evora racer
Has McLaren released details of the cars weight then? I must of missed that,
thought they were keeping it a state secret for now and that the 1300kg weight
was just auto-media guess work, all the Spec's seemed very vague in Mclaren's
press release, About 600bhp, unique suspension but no details etc...
Re: F1 star shakes down Evora racer
Why more and more aero? And especially for a cup?
To glue the car to the track and to make ugly wings?
It is not only for Lotus, but for all the manufacturers wich make race cars more and more glued to the track. This is less spectacular and make the overtakings hard.
Re: F1 star shakes down Evora racer
Nothing wrong with the weight of an Elise.
Don't forget that the Evora is designed to be a comfortable GT, so is bound to be substantially heavier. Having said that, I was hoping they would be able to undercut the weight of the Cayman by a useful margin.
The carbon fibre tub used as the chassis of the new McLaren MP4-12C looks very promising - it weighs less than I do, and is relatively affordable. Unfortunately I don't think the target weight of the McLaren fully exploits it's low mass potential - perhaps they could supply a version to Lotus to produce a new sub-ton Esprit with a light weight forced aspiration engine. That should be able to keep up with traffic.