If there’s one rule of the Goodwood Festival of Speed’s hillclimb, it’s don’t crash. Occasionally, the 1.16-mile run through the Duke of Richmond’s driveway will claim a victim – but usually, it’s through some of the course’s surprisingly gruelling corners, particularly Molcombe. Rarely, though, does it claim a car from the start line.
That’s near enough what happened this year though when Lotus attempted to send its 1972bhp Evija X for a run on the festival’s opening day. As seen in the now-viral clip, the electric hypercar makes a rather dramatic smoke-filled start before very quickly spearing off into a haybale on the right-hand start.
Lotus has since gone in-depth with Goodwood itself on what caused the unfortunate smash. Effectively, as a hugely technical track machine, the Evija X isn’t really designed to be run with its traction control off. It’s pointed out that this doesn’t make it undriveable – it had completed a fairly spectacular run earlier that same day – but does make it a whole lot less predictable.
Compounding this was the fact the Evija X had to navigate around a McLaren Solus GT that had stalled in the queue for the start, so lined up at a slight angle. The driver floored it, with data showing that all four of its motors were instantly delivering their full complement of 2011bhp and 1257lb ft of torque.
Lotus Evija X
Then, as the driver backed off to try and bring an end to the spectacular burnout, the balance of the car shifted and the driver was unable to regain control. This chimes with an earlier statement given to us by a Lotus press representative:
“Evija X is a one-off track version of our electric hypercar, Evija; one of the most powerful production cars in the world. The Evija X took part in a hill run at Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday, 11 July, where it was involved in an incident at the start line.
Lotus Evija X at Goodwood, pre-crash
“Following a formal evaluation by both Goodwood and Lotus, asymmetric grip caused by overcorrection during rapid acceleration at the start line was determined to be the cause. [The] Driver was unharmed in the incident and there was minimal damage to the car.”
Unsurprisingly, that was the end of the Evija X’s appearances at this year’s FoS, which was a shame – while it was only doing non-timed demo runs this year, it’d surely be in with a shot of taking the fastest time overall during the event’s timed shootout. After all, it’s already the third-fastest thing ever around the Nürburgring. Maybe next year, Lotus?
