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Video: watch the Lotus 3-Eleven squirrel around the Nurburgring

Fastest-ever Lotus is the fastest-ever Lotus round the ‘Ring

Published: 06 Oct 2015

Lotus, being British, is a dab hand at a spot of sporting understatement.

Having packed off its new 3-Eleven lightweight to the Nürburgring Nordschliefe, how do you supposed Lotus chose to describe the world’s most fearsome circuit? ‘The Green Hell’? 14 Miles of Fear?

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Nope. Try ‘renowned proving ground’. Sounds about as intimidating as a round of golf, no?

Perhaps that’s some welcome confidence shining through from Norfolk that its new sticky-tyred, wing-shod trackmobile is reasonably swift. And it is. During some 1250 miles of testing – equating to over 85 laps of the circuit – the 3-Eleven clocked a personal best of 7min 6sec.

Seat-time was shared between Hethel’s long-time chassis guru and general driving deity Gavin Kershaw, and Lotus test driver Mark Basseng. You can watch the 3-Eleven attacking the track in this video. It’s exceedingly speedy.

Nothing’s ever simple with Ring lap times, though, and so it proves with the 3-Eleven. Lotus didn’t have exclusive use of the circuit during its test runs, so time was lost dodging traffic. As such, that 7min 6 sec time is the result of adding together the car’s fastest first and second-sector times. Let the internet teeth-gnashing commence.

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Still, the 900kg 3-Eleven’s aggregate lap time clocks in a theoretical two seconds faster than Nissan’s GT-R Nismo, and could yet get close to the Lamborghini Aventador SV’s 6min 59sec run.

Lotus reckons it can shave the 3-Eleven’s time down to a nice, round 7mins dead if given a clear run. Wonder if they’ll let their F1 talisman Pastor Maldonado have a go?

The 3-Eleven looks quite the handful on the Ring. Judging from the video, suspension travel across the notoriously bumpy track is notable by its absence.

And with ‘just’ 450bhp on tap from its supercharged 3.5-litre V6 the 3-Eleven is, in power terms at least, an underdog compared to the hypercar exotica it’s mixing with at the sharp end of the Ring’s leaderboard. That said, a 3.0-second 0-60mph run and 174mph top speed aren’t to be sniffed at.

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Oh, and prices start at £82,000 (rising to £115,200 for this ‘Race’ version), so it’s also the bargain of the bunch. In Top Gear maths, anyway...

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