And here is another one, of the
Lotus Evora 480 '09. With this one I am now down to 20 unreviewed cars
In any case, quite a promising car in stock form, nice, easy to drive, balanced, all the things one would generally level at a Lotus. Applying your settings had me in for a surprise first. While the normal settings were easy enough to accomplish (mine still somehow has fewer PPs), I could not get the gearbox to allow the pro settings in 5th and 6th gear. I also think you should have a quick look to decide which is which, since I personally found the car much more stable with the pro settings, and much hairier with the standard ones (more on this in a moment).
So on I went to try it out at GVS, its spiritual home. With the standard settings the car proved nervous to say the least. The front is well enough tied down and has excellent grip in lower speed corners (does wash out slightly in the high speed sections like the second and last corners, if pushed) but the back is certainly lively to a high extent - full throttle better only be applied in a straight line and even then not always, unless one is a massive fan of tankslappers
If you back off and drive it gently good times are possible but you always feel that more could be extracted from a slightly better tied down rear end.
It was also the only one of the 66 of you cars I tried, which was really scary over the top of hill chicane. Clip a kerb and all hell would break loose - together with the rear end
After this I decided to try the pro setup just to see the difference and was surprised at its much more benign nature. All my laps were at least 2 seconds faster, full throttle could be used most of the time, the top of hill chicane was a doddle just like usually and there were only a handful of places, where some care was necessary, the rest being all very trouble free. The car seemed transformed, much less carrying a big axe hidden behind its back, much more poised and clinical. 👍
It was also one of the few cars, where I managed to quickly get to within 1,5 secs of Greycap's posted time, as opposed to the usual 3 sec a lap delay
So far so excellent for the alternative setup. To give it some more perspective I tried it in Rome and at Deep Forrest (or whatever the forresty thing is called). Rome is a track I feel extremely comfortable with and I find that most cars have a relatively easy time there. The Lotus managed to throw in quite some surprises, even in the tamer pro setting
The post colloseum left hander had me drifting around, which was definitely a first - the front bit planted well enough but the rear end just kept coming around unless I drove it with a very light throttle and only started accelerating past the apex. The speed was good; it was just a very unusual behaviour, since even very high powered machinery generally did not object to a full throttle application at that point. The right hander immediately after Colloseum (and prior to the one described) also required more care than usually, with the braking being followed by a feathered or at best light throttle.
Once I learned that the car worked well but I found it still one of the more demanding cars around the track and not nearly as natural as at GVS.
Deep Forrest also worked well time wise but required a lot of concentration, especially over any sort of bumps, most of which would unsettle the rear. If you are not careful I feel you could drift around the whole track; with proper care and attention some really good speed can be maintained throughout.
So a car that works wonderfully at GVS and is potentially a bit more of a handful at other tracks. Solid braking, very good front end grip but a rear susceptible to breaking out, epsecially on less than flat surfaces. While I found it faster than the R8 Audis at GVS, the pair in my hands murdered it at the other tracks I tried.
After several races and ca. 200km I am still 4PP shy of the stated (was the downforce supposed to be higher?), as well as several bhp under the 480 - maybe I just purchased a slightly wonky example?
In any case, an interesting car with a slightly split personality and a bit of a handful for the more novice driver 👍
But since you did do it now, I'm very curious. So, this is now the true Hachi-Roku?
I guess I should start working on that..💡
