24/03/2015
NEWS STORY
Lotus has announced the recruitment of Hong Kong racer Adderly Fong as a Development Driver for 2015.
Lotus has announced the recruitment of Hong Kong racer Adderly Fong as a Development Driver for 2015. He will undergo a driver development programme as well as contributing to the team's simulator work for enhancing and improving the E23 Hybrid.
Fong will combine his Lotus duties with competing in the GP3 Series and GT Asia seasons. He will work with the team at Grands Prix as well as at the team's base in Enstone, England.
"It's great to have Adderly join the team," said Matthew Carter, CEO of the Lotus F1 team. "We have an aggressive development programme with the E23 so he will be able to both learn from our engineers and race drivers as well as contribute to our car through the course of the season. We have a very strong driver line-up which Adderly will join so he has a great opportunity to learn ahead of him. We are committed to moving back up the competitive order and Adderly's work behind the scenes will be invaluable in assisting us to achieve this."
"This is a great opportunity to further my racing career," added Fong, who completed his first F1 test with Sauber at Valencia last year, covering 99 laps in a two-year-old C31, and subsequently drove the 20104 version in FP1 in Abu Dhabi. "I'll be able to learn how an F1 team operates during race weekends as an integral part of the team and these invaluable experiences are going to lay the foundations of my future development as an F1 driver. I am happy but I am not going to get carried away, for this is only the first of many steps. I aim to become the first Chinese driver to compete in a Formula 1 Grand Prix which will assist to promote the sport in China and also in Hong Kong. There is great potential for me with Lotus F1 Team so I can't wait to get underway in my new role."
Fong, of course, becomes the team's second development driver, the Enstone outfit having previously recruited Carmen Jorda.