30 years after World Rally Championship victory in the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus it's time to welcome Lotus back to rally with the brother of the newly launched Exige S – the Exige R-GT.

What better way to demonstrate Lotus' superior ride and handling than by re-entering the adrenaline filled Rally Championships? Showcasing the new Exige S' phenomenal performance, the Exige R-GT will participate in the newly formed FIA GT category of the FIA Rally Championship on asphalt in Monte Carlo, Tour de Corse and San Remo.

For Group Lotus' Director of Motorsport Claudio Berro the return to rally has an extra special meaning; "My motorsport career started in rally, in fact, I even took part in the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus' Italian Rally championship winning a race in San Marino back in 1981 so this is a very nostalgic moment for me. As we unveiled the car in Frankfurt, alongside the original championship winning car, I had the chance to get back inside and the smell was exactly the same – it brought back many happy memories for me.

"With the new R-GT rules in rally, it's a very interesting time for us to return to the sport. Naturally our approach this time around will be different to when we won the championship with Talbot three decades ago but I think our philosophy is definitely the same, we want to compete and ultimately we want to win. Our new rally car, the Exige R-GT is a dream come true for those who are passionate about GT racing – this will be their car."

The beauty of the Exige R-GT is that although it's a professionally set up race car, you don't need to be a pro to drive it – the race car has been developed alongside the road car allowing the technical team to create the perfect race machine, high performance but without losing the sense of fun to drive and ease of use. Developing the race version of the Exige in parallel with the road car has allowed the Lotus technicians to make rapid advances in terms of safety and reliability.

Claudio Berro commented: "We have learnt a great deal from working with the Evora and creating various race derivatives over the past 18 months particularly how best to adapt a road car for the track and competitive racing. We were able to put this learning to good use with the Exige project. In my mind rally is probably the ultimate motorsport, it combines the excitement of track racing with the specialist skills needed for road racing – we really believe it's one of the best and most straight forward ways to demonstrate the capabilities of our products."

Powered by the same V6 3.5 litre engine as the new road Exige, significant changes have been made to the gearbox and the restrictors on the engine in order to control the power. Lotus will initially partner with several customer teams following the tried and tested method in which Lotus entered IndyCar and returned to Le Mans.

Whilst most sensible people prepare to wind down for the festive period, the hard working Lotus Motorsport team are busy celebrating the fruits of their labour over the past 12 months following the first successful engine fire up in the Lotus IndyCar chassis AND the first proper Exige R-GT rally car shakedown all within the space of 24 hours.

The first official Lotus IndyCar engine fire up in new car took place on 22nd December at Dallara’s headquarters in Varano Melegari, Palma under the watchful eye of Group Lotus Director of Motorsport Claudio Berro and technicians from the team. Pleased with the overall results, the team have now prepared the engine and car for shipment to the US where full testing will begin in January.

Heading north to Turin, the Exige R-GT, the Rally version of the new Exige S, took centre stage with a quick track shakedown for the first time in full Rally specification. The car handled exactly as expected and the team were delighted with the results. Testing will continue in the new year ahead of the start of the 2012 FIA World Rally Championship season where the Exige will contend the FIA GT category on asphalt at events in Monte Carlo, Tour de Corse and San Remo.

Claudio Berro said: “The fire up in the car went really well, there were no nasty surprises and I think our partners are going to be very happy with the results. It was only October last year that we announced that we would become an IndyCar engine supplier and just 12 months on, we had an all new Lotus engine and three teams signed up - Bryan Herta Autosport, Dreyer and Reinbold Racing, and HVM Racing. We’ve still got a lot of work to do ahead of the start of the 2012 IZOD IndyCar season but so far I’m very encouraged by what I see.

“And as for the Rally car, when you consider that we’ve only began working on this car in July, I think what we’ve achieved in that time has been incredible. For me the Exige S makes the perfect GT rally car, it has an awesome 3.5-litre, supercharged engine, and we’ve managed to balance the weight perfectly to meet the minimum weight regulations. The shakedown today (23rd December) has only made us even more excited to show off the car in true race form early next year – I think we’re doing the Lotus motorsport pedigree proud.”