Assetto Corsa: Lotus Evora GTE Review

Chris

Premium
Screenshot_lotus_evora_gte_silverstone-international_16-12-2014-20-27-27.jpg

Impressive on paper, rubbish on tarmac.

The English county of Norfolk is home to many big names like James Blunt, Martin Brundle and Steven Fry. It's also the home of a small car company called Lotus. If, like me, you're a petrol-head then of course you will have heard of them: Plucky underdogs, punching above their weight with small, lightweight sports cars that keep the supercar giants on their toes. Most notably with the Elise, a fun-sized, agile mouse of a car that will give Johnny Sixpack a thrill and a fright. Lotus's latest performance car is called the Evora, which is larger and more powerful than the Elise, and is damn nice to drive to boot. Both are featured in Assetto Corsa and both are markedly different to drive. But if I'm honest, the Elise is to me, still the Jewel in the Lotus crown, as it may not be quicker around a track, but it's nicer to drive and feels more connected with the road.

However, there's now an upgraded version of the Evora: A track oriented car that can be used legally on the road, with lower profile tyres, stiffer suspension, a new body kit with beautifully flourished aerodynamic panels, a new sequential gearbox taken from an actual race car, and more carbon fibre than you can poke a stick at. They've named it the Evora GTE, and on paper it's quite a serious looking car. But how does it stack up on track?

Let's start with the 'good', shall we?
It's quick in a straight line. Very quick. It will get you from a stand still to 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds, and if you keep your right foot hard down (and if you have a long enough straight), Lotus claim it'll go on to reach a top speed of 288 km/h. It also comes in a variety of colours... Which is nice. Speaking of looking nice, I think it's actually quite a good looking car. The gills on the side of the front bumper make it look aggressive and almost shark-like. The stylists have done an exceptional job.

The force feedback is detailed enough to feel the weight transfer of the car nicely, which seems to be a strong point of Kunos's road cars. But, inevitably that leads me on to my next point, which is that this car is horrible to drive on track. The steering wheel is so light that any feel for the tyres and track surface is lost. Every corner is a 'turn-and-hope' affair as you understeer into whatever piece of scenery that you happen to be aiming at at that particular moment in time. Then when you are inevitably about to run wide at every instance, you ease off the throttle and there's a buffet of lift-off oversteer that greets you in an instant and in great quantities. If the steering wheel had more weight to it, then you might be able to compensate and judge the grip level more naturally, but it isn't so you can't.

Screenshot_lotus_evora_gte_silverstone-international_16-12-2014-20-21-32.jpg


It's supposedly a rear wheel drive, but it doesn't feel that way because of all the on-throttle understeer. It honestly feels a lot like a front wheel drive... Only worse. A deep-sea cruise-liner is more nimble than this thing. The braking performance is good, but because of the terminal understeer and general unwillingness to go around corners, you have to brake for corners so early that you'll practically have to come to a dead stop as you reach the apex.

I find it hard to believe that the engineering and design teams at Lotus stepped back from this car and said "Mmmm, Yes. This is the way I want this car to handle." As a result, the Evora GTE is a frustrating experience to say the least.

I honestly don't understand how this car has been butchered so badly by making some race-car modifications. Logic would tell you that it would be better for it, but it simply isn't. The standard Evora is a fantastic car, it behaves as you'd expect it to, and it's traditional 6-speed manual gearbox works flawlessly. It's also a match, and often quicker, than the outstanding German-made BMW 1M, which for my money is one of the best cars in the world right now.

As a result of all this terribleness, the Evora GTE is one of the least driven cars in all of Assetto Corsa. Most people would fail to even recognize it's existence in the game at all. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Assetto Corsa would be no worse off if the Evora GTE was scrapped from the game entirely.

So, unless you're the type of person who enjoys questioning every life decision you've ever made while sim-racing, then I'd say you should stick with the standard Evora, or better still, take the Elise for a drive. It's better looking and much better to drive.

However, if you do decide to test this car out after reading this review, you'll be spending the majority of your time either in the pits getting repairs, or spun out in the runoff. Still, this will at least give you some free time to admire the interior which, as with the aesthetics of the external bodywork, is very nice. In keeping with the weight saving ideology, Lotus have made several of the items in the cockpit out of carbon fibre, including the steering wheel and the centre console. They've even made an Evora GTE Carbon, which is almost entirely made from the stuff, but that's for another day.

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1stars.gif

1 out of 5 stars.
Lotus's 'George Bush moment'.
 
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Sheamus Power

Diehard Nismo Fan
To be honest, I feel like Kunos did something to **** up the GTE. Its cousins the GTC and the original Evora are actually better to drive, considering the latter is a road car with the usual understeer. I'm fairly sure that the GTE, or at least the GT4 version of the car IRL has participated and won in numerous events and championships, so I don't think Kunos' reproduction of the GTE is particularly worthy of the actual car itself. I know you can't expect every car to be perfect, but considering how nice the GTC is to drive, and how nice the Evora is to drive (keeping in mind its a road-based sports car), it feels like the GTE should be much better.
 
"However, if you do decide to test this car out after reading this review, you'll be spending the majority of your time either in the pits getting repairs, or spun out in the runoff."

Took the car for a spin in vallelunga and managed to do several laps without a single problem. I think you might be overdriving it and that's what may be causing so much trouble, this car needs to be driven gently and it can be quite rewarding if you do so. Only thing I have to point out is the sluggish transmission, would rather have the manual one.
 

Chris

Premium
Just to to clarify, I'm not saying that Kunos have done a bad or inaccurate job with this car, because they haven't. I know that each time they create a car, it's done with the utmost quality and realism to its real life counterpart. So it's always hard to give a bad review when you consider how much hard work goes into creating a single car.

But...

In my experience this car is a total dog to drive. Whether it's like that in real life I have no idea. I'm not overdriving it, but you simply cannot push it to its limit of grip, otherwise it just refuses to do anything.
100% agree about the sluggish transmission though @Guilherme Silva
 
Just curious as to where you tested it and what kind of lap times did you run? I just tried it at Nurburgring Sprint and other than a bit of corner exit understeer, it was quite nice. Ran 10 consecutive laps without spinning or wrecking, and even threw in a couple nice little drifts. Lap times were a couple seconds faster than the E92 M3 so the car has plenty of performance.
 

Ghoults

Lasse Luisu
Have to say I'm not a fan of many of the lotuses in the game. Ear shattering understeer coupled with butt clenching lift of neutrality. The superturbo is too fast for me but the 49 is a magnificent vehicle. The road cars. Just nope. Which is odd because lightness, agility and road tires should be a killer combo but with most lotuses it just isn't.
 

Chris

Premium
@Chris Stacey I recommend that you try the Lotus again providing you have your wheel set up correctly with the new minimum force feedback. The tweaks to the tires have truly changed this car for the better IMO. Might be worth giving it a few more laps.
Wow, yeah the new FFB has totally transformed this car. It feels much more readable and predictable now. Just turned 10 laps of Silverstone National, and it felt much more driveable than before.
Cheers!

Still not as good as the Elise, but it feels much nicer than it did before 1.0
Loving this new FFB!

Will definitely be doing a review of it's Carbon version.
Stay tuned... ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Si
Made some laps and totally disagree with this review.
This car, thanks to new tyre model/ffb etc. is a pleasure. Done a bunch of laps going faster lap after lap until 5th position in RSR.
No eccessive understeer and perfectly driveable, stable in heavy braking too ...
I think that a little setup change can make the difference, in this and many other cars.
 

Chris

Premium
Made some laps and totally disagree with this review.
This car, thanks to new tyre model/ffb etc. is a pleasure. Done a bunch of laps going faster lap after lap until 5th position in RSR.
No eccessive understeer and perfectly driveable, stable in heavy braking too ...
I think that a little setup change can make the difference, in this and many other cars.
Keep in mind this review was written before the new tyre model update.
 
I totally disagree with the review.
The car just grips, and grips, and grips... I liked it very much back in the time of review, as well as now. Really it has endless grip and is a great fun to drive.
You have to remember that Evora has assissted power steering in opposition to Elise or Exige.
That's why the FFB is more filtered. Because 'ffb' in real car is also much more lighter...
 

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