I thought some people might be interested in my initial thoughts on the new AC update's Lotus 2-Eleven, as I'm a former racing driver who now owns a 2-Eleven for track days and road use here in the UK. I've just done 15 laps on the sim:
I've just tried the 2-Eleven on AC at the track I last drove in it in real life, Silverstone International, and have just compared my replay from just now in Assetto Corsa with some in-car laps from the real track in my 2-Eleven that I filmed a couple of months ago (link below). Here are my thoughts:
Initially it felt 80-85% of the way there, but with a more stable back end (see the constant mid-corner correction required in the above video, although the rear tyres were over-heating in that clip) and slightly less weight transfer effects - the slides didn't get nasty as quickly as they do in the real car and the rear seemed a bit more stable. Then I reduced the rear wing to 6 degrees (the track only version presumably modelled in the sim has an adjustable rear wing, whereas my road version doesn't) and I took the front ARB down a notch to position 2 (I actually run full stiffness at the front in real life, but I noticed the sim has 4 positions, so maybe the track car has a different front ARB?). Now with those settings it feels very similar indeed to my 2-Eleven, and in the video/replay comparison it looks spookily similar. Lap times are about a second different (normally I'm about a second quicker in real life when I've done this sort of comparison before, due to the feel element, but this time it was the other way round- best lap in real life was a 1:16, whereas just now I did a 1:15), however it was my first ever time on the layout when I drove it back then and only my second trackday in the car and on AC I've been practising a fair bit at the circuit lately, so I'd say the lap times are bang on - if I went back in my real car I think I know where I could gain time and I think a 1:15 is doable straight away, and probably down into the 14s with time (same for the sim - I just did 15 laps). The real car has fully adjustable dampers all round (rebound and comp), which sadly isn't available in Assetto Corsa (a chink in the realism there - are the development team reading this? I can provide details if necessary); I'd also like to try increasing the damping at the rear end a bit (which is what I do to mine for trackdays, as per Lotus' recommendation), and I think it'd be 100% there then. Incidentally, the geo settings are exactly as per Lotus' recommendation in real life, which is nice, although strangely by default the car in the sim was showing assymetrical front geo numbers, even though the sliders looked the same - is that a bug? Oh, and the 2-Eleven doesn't sound quite as nice with the standard road exhaust compared to my motorsport one(the video above doesn't show it well cause I am running the cameras internal mic sealed up to stop it overloading on wind noise - a home grown ext mic mod is on the way), but I think that's the same as real life too actually; many owners have changed their exhausts from standard.
We need a setting for the seating position too - I'm about 6 inches shorter in the body than the sim driver must be (I look partly through the aeroscreen in real life) and I have the seat much further back cause of my long legs.
All in all, pretty good though, I'm very impressed!
Oh, and the 3D model is also bang on, right down to the stickers and plaque etc in the cockpit - nice work!
Here's a few minutes from my first time at the track in my 2-Eleven, trying to stay with a full race spec Elise on slicks and a monstrous engine transplant:
Just watched this guy get a 1.25.810
