Thirty-two lakh rupees seems to me a lot of money just to go around in circles. Yet that's the way the track-focused market is headed in many countries. Taking to race circuits are folk in scarily bared-teeth semi-race machinery, the theory being that if this is the only way you can really stretch a fast car these days, you might as well get a really fast one. In which Context it seems almost reasonable that Lotus is launching a 32 lakh (before duty) barchetta that'll do 0-160kph in 8.9 seconds and Corners so hard the whole world seems to be tipping on its side.

If you're confident enough you won't render it undriveable by hitting the tyrewall, you can have a 2-Eleven with headlights and indicators, so it's road-legal to drive to and from the track and saves you the bother of trailering it. Provided, of course, you don't mind looking a bit conspicuous. Even disregarding the test car's paint scheme, which is as attention-seeking as a red-bummed baboon in a high-viz waistcoat, the face is anyone in a car without a windscreen looks like they're trying a bit too hard, especially as you really have to wear a full-face helmet because of the buffeting and the risk of flying gravel. I did try without the helmet, but as the least aerodynamically optimised component in the car I was in severe discomfort, besides, the combined forces of sun and wind reddened my balding pate so much I must have looked like Mr. Strawberry.

There's a reason for the 2-Eleven looking as it does. It has very little bodywork because lightness is all. And the shape of it is determined by the passing air. There's real down force here, which combined with the featherweight 745kg mass gives it blazing, hectic cornering speeds. As an example of the attention paid to aero, Lotus Sport (the Lotus division that makes the 2-Eleven) has even moved the supercharger's intercooler from its regular Exige position on top of the engine, so it snuggles down behind the cylinder head. That way they lowered the rear deck, to provide cleaner airflow to the rear wing.

Woooooah this thing is fast on the track. Far faster than anything I can take advantage of. But somehow not too terrifying. Chalk that up as a success for Lotus. They admit a wheelman of Stigular capability would get around a track faster in a Radical, which is probably the current track-day king. But for the rest of us ... I don't mind admitting that when I've driven Radicals, and the fastest Atoms and Caterhams and West fields, they've intimidated the cack out of me. The 2-Eleven's mission is to be friendlier to drive. You can feel the limits approaching.

I wasn't lapping anything like fast enough to probe the limit on every corner, but by the simple method of fouling it up on a circuit I didn't know - going in too fast here, backing off there, taking the wrong line the other place - it became dear what a terrific chassis this is. It's evenly balanced, the front doing its share, the rear clinging on hard. The tail will move out under power, or if you lift off, but it’s catchable and intimately signalled. The steering is a profound joy, in no way twitchy, progressive as you like, loading up with the forces, lightening as the grip ebbs away at the limit or over a crest. There's a smidge of body roll to let you know what's up, but it's magically damped through esses. The brakes summon nuclear strength forces with delicacy to cherish. To help some more, there's an adjustable traction Control system, and launch Control. ABS is fitted too, calibrated to let you use every last molecule of the discs' strength.

The engine is a perfect fit. The supercharger means instant and progressive answers to right-foot orders across a wide rev-Counter arc. Use all the 8,500 and it's blindingly quick. Lotus says 0-1 00kph in 3.8 seconds, and consistently so because of the launch control. The drag of down force means it tops out at 240 and on the back straight acceleration seemed to be tailing right off at 190.

But friendliness is a relative term here. It's sti11 a viciously ~sau1ring experience. Second and third-gear corners are surreal, like a movie where you're only shown every third frame. The sheer disorienting machine-gun rapidity of the changes of direction make a normal supercar, at twice the mass, seem lazy. Then there's all the buffeting: you're trapped in the core of a typhoon.

But in a few laps you're getting used to it. Then you're feeling the rewards, a beyond-nature paradox of delicacy with force. The joy of a track car is in shaking the dust out of your brain, getting your nervous system working double-speed. The joy of the 2-Eleven is that the learning curve is a curve not a cliff.

The other plus point is it's based on an Elise, which has been around long enough not to be flaky. There's less to go wrong here: no heater, wipers, window winders. All gone in the name of weight reduction. The engine is a Toyota job. It won't need a rebuild every three outings. Any Lotus dealer will service it.

And on the road it's a cinch. It trickles through traffic like a supermini. The gearshift's easy, the steering's light enough, there's ground clearance.

OK, you'll be soaking in me rain and freezing in the cold. And to get in and out it helps to have a crane handy, but once you're in you can overtake anything. A fair swap.