Competition to bring increasingly capable vehicles to market has never been more intense. Development times are reducing, vehicle complexity is increasing and global market pressures demand that engineering teams make the right decisions earlier than ever. At Lotus Engineering, advanced simulation and objective development methods are combined with decades of vehicle dynamics experience to establish the fundamental character and capability of a vehicle long before the final stages of physical development.

But what happens when the simulation says the car is good? This presentation explores the critical relationship between objective engineering and expert subjective assessment: when the driver enters the development process, what an expert vehicle assessor is actually evaluating, and how subjective observations are translated back into engineering parameters and physical changes. Using the Lotus approach to vehicle dynamics development, John will explore why this human-in-the-loop development remains essential in extracting the last 5% — transforming a technically capable vehicle into one that communicates with its driver, inspires confidence and, ultimately, is engineered For the Drivers.