[fastspider]

The is one point that hasn't been made.

All things being equal, the front/rear tradeoffs are as described. However the big difference between an Elise and most other road cars is that it is much lighter. For me the effect of this is that the Elise is actually quite reluctant to spin, it steps out a bit then finds enough grip to keep going, since there is much less mass trying to make it spin around.

I ran an autocross in the rain soon after I got my car and learned a lot, but in the regular runs didn't even hit a cone. In some fun runs afterwards I pushed harder and harder but despite sliding all through the course, it really didn't slide far off line.

I've driven/spun a Ferrari 328 on a skid pan, and owned a Porsche 911 for a few years, and you can feel the extra weight trying to turn you around at a much higher level than the Elise.