Lotus designates 2012 chassis the E20

27/01/2012

The Lotus F1 team has announced that this year's car will be named the E20, to commemorate the twentieth chassis designed at the team's base in Enstone.

The E20 will be unveiled on the team's website on February 5th and shown to the world's media the following day at Jerez, when it will briefly take to the track for filming. On February 7th, Kimi Räikkönen will start the team's test programme.

Enstone has been a Formula 1 team base since 1992, with the team then known as Benetton moving to the facility from its previous Witney, Oxfordshire, base.

This season will see the 500th Grand Prix contested by Lotus F1 Team, including those contested through its previous incarnations.

Lotus F1 Team's roots can be traced to Toleman Motorsport, which entered F1 in 1981 and started 57 Grands Prix. For 1986 the team was renamed as Benetton, and in this guise 260 races were contested until in 2002 the team became Renault F1 Team. As Renault F1 Team, 159 Grands Prix were started, with the team becoming Lotus Renault GP for 2011, contesting a further 19 events. The current total of Grands Prix stands at 495.

"Our naming of the chassis to recognise Enstone's importance to the team's evolution highlights our recognition of the contribution of the facility and the personnel who work tirelessly every year to produce the very best car possible," said Eric Boullier. "We hope that this is the case with the E20 and we are looking forward to revealing the car to the world and seeing it out on track for the first time. There are a number of technical changes from last year and we have an exciting new driver line-up to extract the maximum from the E20 through the twenty Grands Prix of the 2012 season, including the 500th race for this team through its different incarnations. We hope that the E20 proves to be a performing Enstone design."