TLF Exige Cup/Race "Ten Tenths" Day - 17th Sept 2015

[TonyKL 133]

Ok. We made it back

Going to be leaving around 6pm as I fancy the challenge of the M25 at rush hour. What time were people thinking about eating at the BiH?

 

Yeah! Congrats, that's great news, hope car all ok.

I think I'll probably try and leave sometime 4-5ish so anytime after 7.30 would suit me but I doubt you'll be there by then.

[The Pits 4,411]

Best news I've heard today! Look forward to seeing you later Tom, expect a hero's welcome!

 

I won't be leaving until around 4-5pm from Southampton so won't be there early. Shall we aim for 8.30pm?

 

[Trevsked 771]

Very green about you all tomorrow and a shame I can't make it but an annual trip to Germany is a date clash. Have a great time as I'm sure you will.

J, I'm expecting 2 secs a lap as result of this!

Trevor.

[The Pits 4,411]

Real shame you can't make it Trevor, should be a really interesting day.

 

Do we need to bring our licences? Can't find mine anywhere 

 

I can do the DVLA thing if needs be.

[Neal H 914]

I don't have the Race Pack on my car so this day isn't really applicable to me, but if it goes well and TLF decides to organise a future, more general, 'how to get the most from your Exige' Hethel day, I'll be up for it!

 

Have fun everyone

[Bibs 11,654]

Have you booked the BiH for dinner, and if so under whose name and at what time please?

[TonyKL 133]

Don't think anything is booked yet - fancy sorting it out - think 8.30 has been suggested? 

[redspeed 6]

Well, I've packed some extra strong anti-perspirant and spare clean underwear (or should that be the other way round?), and will be leaving Sussex shortly.

When get to the BiH I'll let them know that there'll be a group of eight(ish) wanting to eat, after 8.

[Bibs 11,654]

Table is booked for 7:30 (8 will be fine I'm sure), it's the nice alcove opposite the bar so ask for the TLF table. I did ask for the PDR for you but they've got a big MX5 meet in there tonight.

 

First drink is on TLF, I'd recommend the Wherry 

[LF1 564]

Google says 2 1/2 hours for me, so 8:30 sounds ideal. I'll be in the chav blue Golf

[Bibs 11,654]

[farook 39]

Hi - I have not left yet, at my mums she is not doing well. So, will have to miss this - big shame as I was really looking forward to it. Especially, since I doubt very much something like this will be run again...

 

Enjoy guys and and hope the weather is good for you exp,ore the limits of the car and it's wizardry 

[LF1 564]

This was a great day - thanks for organising Bibs! I think Jonny is planning a detailed write up. 

They will run the day again if anyone is interested.

The detailed explanation of how the systems work was very interesting. We came to the conclusion that no one has the correct understanding of how it works all the reviews and articles are just wrong. Once we knew and started testing the cars it was eye opening. 

There was about an hour of driving. It was absolutely no limits, we were all encouraged to force the cars into extreme situations to feel how it sorts them out within each mode. 

Roll on our next track day!

[Bullphi 12]

Can't wait to read the write up and would defo be interested if another is run. I did discover yesterday that it can't sort everything out (even in touring mode) you still need to take care in the wet. Fortunately didn't hit anything. After that I think I would prefer to experiment in one of their cars than in my own.

[The Pits 4,411]

Just got back but really enjoyed the day. It was a great surprise to see Tom present and still smiling after his ordeal but sorry to hear that Farook had to pull out at the last minute. I hope your Mum makes a full and speedy recovery soon.

Head's buzzing a bit from today (and the 3+ hour drive back). I've never been so brutal on a car on track before! I was doing things I'd never do in my own Exige. It was all part of exploring the how the various systems work. I'll do a more detailed write up on the DPM system, which will be up hopefully next week, along with some in-car video. A really nice treat were the hotlaps in the new 360Cup in instructor and racer Emma Selway's very capable hands (think Vicky Butler Henderson videos stuck in fast forward!). The free cake seemed to attract the great and the good to the hospitality area, including the likes of Gavan Kershaw and Russell Gibbons from Lotus Motorsport, naturally the opportunity to try and extract some juicy information wasn't wasted!

But until then a big thank you to Bibs for making it happen and also to all at Lotus who gave up their time to make us feel so welcome. The food was terrific and plentiful, so thanks B&C for that as well. Guy Munday was very generous with his time and kept the whole show on the road. Having been on 3 factory tours now, plus visits to Classic Team Lotus I can say there's no substitute for a Guy Munday tour! He's a true Lotus man to the core!

 

[Stubox 564]

Does sound a rather good tutorial day, hope they put it on again in the spring as I'd like to do it then.

 

 

[Bibs 11,654]

Emma the Instructor!

[jbs 37]

Did you guys get to see the 3-Eleven by any chance ? 

[The Pits 4,411]

No but I spoke at length to Gavan Kershaw about it. Total weapon.

[Bibs 11,654]

Yesterday we welcomed guests for a very special bespoke training day, to learn about the 'Race Mode' on their Exige S or...

Posted by

Lotus Driving Academy

on 

Friday, 18 September 2015

[PaulLF1 140]

Looks like you all had a great day.

I see the cars in the photos were left hand drive. did that present any problems? Or were they right hand cars available?

[Neal H 914]

Emma the Instructor!

Did she misunderstand when she was told to demonstrate 'race mode'

[The Pits 4,411]

No. No difficulty understanding that!

I think that's the only mode she's got.

VERY quick driver!

[LF1 564]

Looks like you all had a great day.

I see the cars in the photos were left hand drive. did that present any problems? Or were they right hand cars available?

they were both LHD, first run out I had some hand eye coordination issues by the end of the day had got used to it. Was probably the only negative on the day for me, but not a biggie.

Did she misunderstand when she was told to demonstrate 'race mode'

she did the demos in sport mode (which they wanted to call fun mode originally). Much easier to get the arse out. 

Edited September 19, 2015 by T3Jn

[The Pits 4,411]

I'm currently writing up a more technical piece about DPM and how the modes work but will talk more about the day itself here.

As already mentioned, the presentation from Ross Restell (one of the top Vehicle Dynamics guys at Lotus now) was particularly interesting and eye-opening. We quickly came to the conclusion that no-one, not the car journos, the dealers nor us owners really understood how it worked. The car journos in particular must have been asleep during the press briefings!

After that, we were straight into the cars for a 20 minute session exploring 'Tour' mode. I had pretty much written it off as a road-only safety system, not a performance system and rarely give it the time of day in my own car. It is primarily a safety system but it is far more impressive than I had appreciated. This is the thing Chris Harris was referring to as 'Billy Proof'. I have never before been so intentionally brutal and idiotic with a fast car on the track and feeling the system in action was astonishing. In some ways it was the most impressive mode of the three as it includes understeer recognition. They call it that but 'understeer eradication' would have been a better term. I will post up some video with the article that I hope will do it justice. It was also still pretty damp during our first 20 minutes on track which was ideal. For all the sessions we focused primarily on the Andretti hairpin which has the most run-off and we were instructed to give the opposite Rindt hairpin plenty of respect. Yes all the cars were LHD which did make things more challenging as did the very tired gearbox in the car I drove. The Academy cars have an incredibly hard life but the gearbox on this car was dreadful compared to my own car. Sloppy, vague and unwilling to find 2nd gear in particular. I hope it receives some attention before the next Academy day. 

The second session was to experiment with 'Sport' which allows more slip (Tour won't tolerate any at either end of the car!). As Tom mentioned Lotus wanted to call this fun mode. In practice on a dry track it was hard work getting a car as grippy and naturally strong in traction to slide much but I managed to feel the car moving around a bit before the allowed threshold was reached. Beyond that, it's very obvious when the systems are working. It was hard work though, all for a very modest amount of opposite lock. I threw everything at the car - scandinavian flicks, left foot braking right on the apex - the whole shooting match. Part of it is having to get past the V6S's dialled-in understeer safety net, but more times than not the car just hooked up and rocketed forwards without any drama at either end.

We had a break for a very generous lunch, courtesy of Bell & Colvill (and the no-shows on the day). The abundance of left-overs drew various luminaries to the hospitality suite which meant rivetting (for us!) discussions with Gavan Kershaw, Dave Minter, Ross Restell, Russell Gibbons among others - although the one about 350bhp being more than enough is getting a bit tired now Russell .   It is pretty clear now that the 'Exige 420 Cup' is largely a TLF invention based on some fairly sketchy assumptions to do with the 311 and Lotus Motorsport policies that Russell wasn't aware of! He said that if they do an Exige 400 then the Motorsport version would likely be a 400 Cup. Of course that would be a ballistic device of epic proportions but I for one hope Motorsport return whole-heartedly to the tradition of Cup cars having more power in addition to the (much more useful in reality) weight reduction. Still hoping for a 420 Cup in other words Russell! Yes we're all daft but don't forget we also do daft things like write large cheques for small, impractical sports cars so, really, we need to be encouraged! It all depends how many Cup cars Motorsport are able to make and want to sell. If JMG wants to increase Cup production, a 420 (or more!) will find more buyers as there are more reasons to justify the premium, overlook the reduced warranty and so on. If JMG wants production to remain super exclusive, carry on as you were!

Back to the DPM day, the afternoon was spent exploring what we had learned about 'RACE' mode before Emma's vivid demonstration of the new 360 Cup's capabilities. Video to follow on that soon too. After the V6S's we had been ragging around all afternoon the Cup car felt more composed and tidier in extremis. It also appeared more ready to oversteer (or less willing to understeer, take your pick) and was left in 'SPORT' mode for the laps.

I've already touched on Guy's excellent factory tour. It was great to see the Evora 400s being built along with all the extra plumbing required for the chargecooler. I suspect it will be quite a challenge packaging all of that into an Exige plus it makes the weight figures for the 311 even more remarkable. I heard that the chargecooled engine weighs something like 40kg extra, it sounds a lot but there are 2 extra rads, fluids, pipework and all the rest. The supercharger has been moved forward from its current location to make way for the charge cooler too. It means Lotus actually stripped something like 60kg from the Evora S to get to a net reduction of 22kgs. I don't imagine it will be as easy to strip 60kg from the Exige so I wouldn't expect a chargecooled car to be much lighter than the current one.

The Classic Team Lotus tour was especially fascinating for me, despite this being my 3rd visit there. Guy used the cars in the workshop to plot the entire history of Lotus F1 development, making the point that Lotus were so influential in F1 design that the same cars also plotted the development of the sport as a whole. There were some real treasures in there for fans of the marque. Better than any museum, this was a living, breathing workshop full of cars that are being used and still raced. Not a cobweb in sight! It was a thrill to see some of Chapman's actual engineering drawings complete with calculations and notes, all hand drawn on paper. There was such artistry to engineering in the pre-computer era.

So, a fantastic day for any Exige V6 owner. The feedback I got from those I spoke to briefly was that perhaps another session of driving would have been useful (at the expense of the factory tour if necessary) as we did have to acclimatise to the LHD. One suggestion was actually to spray water on the Andretti hairpin to allow the cars to slide more easily which I thought was a good idea if possible. Also, if the Driving Academy would allow it, perhaps the final session of the day could be with 'everything off'. It would have been great for the video but Danny made the point that no other factory driving experience would normally let the punters out with anything other than the safest possible mode. It was not really suitable for complete track novices as it was.

Massive thanks again to Bibs, a bespoke day just for TLFers deserved a bit better attendance. I hope for your sakes there is another one and I would encourage any V6 (or Evora 400 owner) to attend. In fact I think the dealers should offer the day with a new car order or perhaps it should be included for those who tick the 'Race' pack option?