The new Lotus 3-Eleven has marked its first public outing by completing a two-week test session at the Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. Lotus says over 1200 miles were covered as part of a test and development programme ahead of the car’s launch in February of next year.

In what was its first turn of a wheel outside of Lotus’ Hethel HQ, the new 3-Eleven was piloted by three different drivers with individual areas of expertise and vehicle set-up with specific focus – aerodynamics, engine calibration, chassis tuning and suspension geometry.

With clear running on the circuit an inhibiting factor over the course of the two week period – in which the track was not designated solely for the use of Lotus – the 3-Eleven is said to have lapped regularly on or below the target simulation time.

By combining the quickest sector times achieved during the fastest 2 laps on the “Sport Auto” magazine lap configuration, a total lap time of 7 minutes 06 seconds was recorded by the vehicle’s data logging acquisition system.

“The 3-Eleven achieved one of the fastest ever lap times around the Nürburgring for any class of car and faster than many other supercars” said Lotus CEO, Jean-Marc Gales.

Marking the arrival of a new generation of Lotus high performance sports cars, the 3-Eleven features an all-new lightweight body, with an open cockpit design and a V6 supercharged engine developing 450 bhp.

The new model will become the quickest and most powerful production Lotus road car ever when goes on sale in early 2016. Production will be limited to just 311 vehicles in total.

Source: Lotus

Tags: 3-Eleven, Jean-Marc Gales, Lotus, Nürburgring, V6