Racing is expensive. Fuel, tires, technology, transport, drivers, you name it.
Racing is even more expensive when you put your car into the wall.
Sadly, the Lotus Evija X was on track for about two seconds flat before wadding itself up after augering into the safety hay bales that flank the start line of the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Unfortunately, it looks as though (and this is just our guess) the Lotus suffered some sort of traction control issue, sending all the beans ... and I mean ALL the beans to the rear wheels, instantly snapping the mostly carbon fiber hypercar 90 degrees sideways, turning that beautiful machine into a neighborhood yard sale. The Lotus has four electric motors powering each wheel, and puts 1,972 bhp (1,470 kW) and 1,323 lb-ft (1,794 Nm) worth of beans to the ground, not really leaving much time to react on such a narrow track.
Harry Metcalfe, a Goodwood Festival of Speed commentator said, "this isn't driver error." He also believed it to be a software issue.
The driver – we don't have any official word on who it was – exited the vehicle unhurt after the crash.
Just weeks ago, we wrote about the Lotus having obliterated the Nordeschleife track record by more than 10 seconds, besting the previous record set by the Mercedes AMG One. It looks as though Lotus was out to set more records at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The Goodwood FoS has been around since 1993, hosted every year in June or July at the Goodwood House in West Sussex, England. Lord March, the owner of the estate, didn't have the necessary permits to host a racing event at the Goodwood Circuit, so he decided to host a race on his property. It's such a popular race event, that spectators are capped at 150,000 people that line the hill-climb track to watch everything from Formula 1 cars to motorcycles to soap box derby carts race up (or down) the 1.17-mile (1,890-m), nine-turn track that climbs 304 feet (93 m).
The hill-climb track record, set in 2022, is a blisteringly quick 39.08 seconds set by former F1 driver Max Chilton in the McMurtry Speirling, whom oddly enough just set the record at Hockenheim Racetrack in the very same vehicle.
Watch 2.3 million US dollars disassemble itself in glorious smoke-ridden slow motion below.
