Simona De Silvestro Wraps Successful 2010 Rookie Season

Miami, October 6, 2010: While a 23rd place finish at this weekend’s Cafes do Brasil Indy 300 in Homestead, Florida may not have earned a podium celebration, it was nonetheless a cause for celebration for IZOD IndyCar Series rookie Simona De Silvestro. The 300-lap race was a culmination of a year’s worth of challenges and obstacles, and a season of hard work by her and her HVM team made Saturday night’s finish a worthy conclusion to a season with many promising performances.

The popular 22 year old ends the year 19th in the Championship standings with 242 points and is the 2nd highest finishing rookie; a great accomplishment considering she had never raced on an oval prior to the start of the season, nor most of the other circuits. After having a career best oval performance of 13th at this year’s Indianapolis 500 and being honored with the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year award for her impressive performance, Simona turned heads this year with her driving skill, particularly on the road and street circuits with a best finish of 8th at Mid Ohio.

Simona and HVM Racing will be teamed together again in the 2011 IndyCar Series and their focus will now turn to the changes, improvements and financial structure that will be implemented before the first race.

Simona De Silvestro – Driver – “We have tremendous chemistry as a team and money can't buy that. I am thankful for the chance Keith gave me this year and for Imran’s support. The whole team has come a long way. We faced a lot of adversity, yet we remained strong and that speaks to the character and cohesiveness of our team and my supporters. We have proved we can run up front, despite the funding challenges from sponsorship short falls.”

Keith Wiggins – HVM Racing Team Owner – “When we started this season we could not have anticipated the challenges we would face, both financially and on track, with incidents and equipment damage. However we could not also have anticipated the development of Simona in such a short period. The team and driver showed what is possible. Now it is time to put 2010 behind us and do the job properly in 2011. This team knows how to win and we are focused on getting the right package together to move forward. ”