Group Lotus is pleased to announce the appointment of Claudio Berro to the new role of Director of Motorsport for Lotus, reporting directly to Dany Bahar, Group Lotus CEO.

Prior to joining Lotus, Claudio Berro held the position of Operations Racing Director for the Speedcar Middle-East International Race Series. Before that, he spent 14 years at Ferrari, Maserati and Fiat where he held such positions as Formula One Team Manager, Director responsible for all sport activities for Ferrari and Maserati (excluding F1), General Manager Maserati Corse and Director of Fiat Group’s Motorsport Activities, before becoming Racing Operations Director for Abarth.

Dany Bahar, Group Lotus CEO, welcomes Claudio Berro to Lotus, “I am delighted that Claudio is joining us as Director of Motorsport. He has a proven track record of not only setting up and managing the motorsport’s divisions within sportscar brands but also winning championships in GT racing and rallying. His skills will be very valuable as we look to return Lotus to high level motorsport around the world. ”

Claudio Berro is excited about his new role and challenges, “Lotus has a peerless motorsport heritage, not just in Formula One, but we have also won in sportscar racing, saloon car racing, world rally championships, Le Mans and the Indy 500. There is no other car company in the world which can lay claim to so many accolades and championships in such a wide variety of motorsport fields, and I am looking forward to re-introducing Lotus to high level motorsport to not only compete and win but also to demonstrate the shared technology between Lotus sportscars and future racing cars.”

This isn’t the first time that Claudio has been associated with Lotus, as early in his motorsport career, he was Rally Co-Driver for Peugeot Talbot Italia in a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, twice becoming Italian Group 2 Rally Champion in 1981 and 1982.

Claudio Berro joins Lotus on the 2nd of November 2009.

The main operating subsidiary of Group Lotus plc is Lotus Cars Limited, which has two operating divisions – Lotus Engineering and Lotus Cars. Lotus Engineering is an internationally recognised automotive engineering consultancy based in Norfolk, UK. Global facilities include those in Michigan (USA), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), China and offices in Germany.

Lotus Engineering provides comprehensive and versatile consultancy services to many of the world’s OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, offering a full engineering service from initial concept and project design through development and integration of the complete vehicle to meet all worldwide markets and customers to full production. This includes third party ‘niche vehicle’ engineering and manufacture worldwide.

Lotus Cars builds world class, prestige, high performance sports cars for sale in 37 countries. These include the iconic Lotus Elise, Exige, Europa and the new award winning Lotus Evora. Lotus is a global high-tech company, expanding rapidly and committed to driving forward technology for both Lotus Cars and its Engineering clients, spearheading research into such areas as hybrids, electric vehicles and renewable fuels.