Lotus Esprit S1 Gr5 Release 4 Years, 11 Months ago
Brickyard Legends Team present :
Lotus Esprit S1 group5 V1.1
Richard Jenvey made a name for himself driving modified sports cars including a supercharged MG Midget in ’73 and a Lotus Elan from ’74 to ’75 winning the 1975 Modsports Championship. With a group of enthusiastic amateurs he set about building his Group 5 Lotus Esprit in 1978. The team retained most of the original Lotus backbone chassis and built a monocoque around it effectively turning the Lotus backbone chassis into a passenger. The original body shell was then sold on which helped cover "a fair fraction" of the costs of building the car which ended up right on the minimum weight limit.
In 1979, Richard Jenvey announced that he would be competing in the 2 litre / 122 cui division of the Group 5 World Manufacturers championship. The Polaroof Morfe Racing Lotus Esprit first appeared at the Dijon 6 hours in April 1979 qualifying first in class ahead of a Fiat X1/9 and BMW 320i, but was the first of the three to retire from the race with engine maladies. At Silverstone the Esprit qualified 3rd in class behind the debuting Lancia Beta Montecarlo turbo and an older BMW 320i. During the race Richard and David Mercer only had to finish to win the class but distributor problems saw the car retire. Over the following two years Richards Lotus made at least seven further starts in World Championship and German Championship events recording a best 7th place finish in the 1981 German Championship round at Zolder.
Richard and Lawrie Hickman, who co drove Richards Lotus in 1981 agree that the Esprit was fabulous to drive but was underpowered against the factory turbocharged Group 5 cars running in the same class from Lancia, BMW and Ford which had over 400 hp available!
- the mod mainly represents R. Jenvey's Lotus Esprit S1
- the mod is linked to GTC-TC-76 class and the BMW CSL.
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-V1.1 update. 2020 :
-Less drive train friction to bring car inline with other cars in the class.
-Gearbox ratios from the Hewland FG400 box that the real car used
-Rear wing adjustment added, this allows rear down force to be set lower than original version when using advanced menu settings.
Setting the wing all the way back up will set rear down force back to almost the original level when it was not adjustable.
-Baseline suspension set up altered.
-mirror image reversal fixed.
-Rear tire overheat fixed (I think).
-a few other small things.
For those wanting to keep only real painted cars in their game Car #34 is the only original car, as only one car was ever built. All the other paint jobs included here are fictional.
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