Team Lotus

## Formula One World Championship Statistics

### Engines

Borgward, Coventry Climax, BRM, Maserati, Ford Cosworth, Pratt & Whitney, Renault, Honda, Judd, Lamborghini

### Entrants

Team Lotus, Rob Walker Racing Team, numerous minor teams and privateers

### Constructors'titles

7 (1963, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1978)

### Last entry

1993 San Marino Grand Prix

**Team Lotus** is the motorsport sister company of English sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars. The team has ran cars in many motorsport categories including Formula One, Formula Two, Formula Ford, Formula Junior, IndyCar, and sports car racing. Team Lotus is one of the most successful racing teams of all time, winning seven Formula One Constructors' titles, six Drivers' Championships, and the Indianapolis 500 in the United States between 1962 and 1978. Under the direction of founder and chief designer Colin Chapman, Lotus was responsible for many innovative and experimental developments in critical motorsport, in both technical and commercial arenas.

## History

Colin Chapman established **Lotus Engineering Ltd** in 1952 at Hornsey, UK. Lotus achieved rapid success with the 1953 Mk 6 and the 1954 Mk 8 sports cars. Team Lotus was split off from Lotus Engineering in 1954. A new Formula Two regulation was announced for 1957, and in Britain, several organizers ran races for the new regulations during the course of 1956. Most of the cars entered that year were sports cars, and they included a large number of Lotus 11s, the definitive Coventry Climax-powered sports racer, led by the Team Lotus entries for Chapman, driven by Cliff Allison and Reg Bicknell.

The following year, the Lotus 12 appeared. Driving one in 1958, Allison won the F2 class in the International Trophy at Silverstone, beating Stuart Lewis-Evans's Cooper. The remarkable Coventry Climax-powered Type 14, the Lotus Cars production version of which was the original Lotus Elite, won six class victories, plus the "Index of Performance" several times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

As the Coventry Climax engines were enlarged in 1952 to 2.2-litres, Chapman decided to enter Grand Prix racing, running a pair of Lotus 12s at Monaco in 1958 for Graham Hill and Cliff Allison. These were replaced later that year by Lotus 16s.

In 1959 – by which time the Coventry Climax engines had been stretched to 2.5-litres inline with Formula rules – Chapman continued with front-engined F1 cars, but achieved little, so in 1960 Chapman switched to the milestone mid-engined Lotus 18. By then, the company's success had caused it to expand to such an extent that it had to move to new premises at Cheshunt.

### Domination in 1960s and 1970s

The first Formula One victory for Team Lotus came when Innes Ireland won the 1961 United States Grand Prix. A year earlier, Stirling Moss had recorded the first victory for a Lotus car at Monaco in his Lotus 18 entered by the independent Rob Walker Racing Team.

There were successes in Formula Two and Formula Junior. The road car business was doing well with the Lotus Seven and the Lotus Elite and this was followed by the Lotus Elan in 1962. More racing success followed with the 26R, the racing version of the Elan, and in 1963 with the Lotus Cortina, which Jack Sears drove to the British Saloon Car Championship title, a feat repeated by Jim Clark in 1964 and Alan Mann in the 1965 European Touring car Championship.

In 1963, Clark drove the Lotus 25 to a remarkable seven wins in the season and won the World Championship. The 1964 title was still for the taking by the time of the last race in Mexico but problems with Clark's Lotus and Hill's BRM gave it to Surtees in his Ferrari. However, in 1965, Clark dominated again, six wins in his Lotus 33 gave him the championship.

While very innovative, Chapman also came under criticism for the structural fragility of his designs. The number of top drivers seriously injured or killed in Lotus machinery was considerable – notably Stirling Moss, Alan Stacey, Mike Taylor, Jim Clark, Mike Spence, Bobby Marshman, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt and Ronnie Peterson. In Dave Friedman's book "Indianapolis Memories 1961–1969", Dan Gurney is quoted as saying, "Did I think the Lotus way of doing things was good? No. We had several structural failures in those cars [Indianapolis Lotus 34 and 38]. But at the time, I felt it was the price you paid for getting something significantly better."

When the Formula One engine size increased to three litres in 1966, Lotus was caught unprepared partly because of the surprising failure of the Coventry Climax 1.5-Litre FWMW Flat-16 project, which prevented Climax from developing a 3-Litre successor. They started the season fielding the hastily prepared and uncompetitive two-litre Coventry-Climax FWMV V8 engine, only switching to the BRM P75 H16 engine in time for the Italian Grand Prix, with the new engine proving to be overweight and unreliable. A switch to the new Ford Cosworth DFV, designed by former Lotus employee Keith Duckworth, in 1967 returned the team to winning form.

Although they failed to win the title in 1967, by the end of the season, the Lotus 49 and the DFV engine were mature enough to make the Lotus team dominant again. However, for 1968 Lotus had lost its exclusive right to use the DFV. The season-opening 1968 South African Grand Prix confirmed Lotus's superiority, with Jim Clark and Graham Hill finishing 1–2. It would be Clark's last win. On 7 April 1968, Clark, one of the most successful and popular drivers of all time, was killed driving a Lotus 48 at Hockenheimring in a non-championship Formula Two event. The season saw the introduction of wings as seen previously on various cars, including the Chaparral sports car. Colin Chapman introduced modest front wings and a spoiler on Hill's Lotus 49B at the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix. Graham Hill won the F1 World Championship in 1968 driving the Lotus 49.

Around the same time, Chapman moved Lotus to new premises at Hethel in Norfolk. A new factory was built on the site, the former RAF Hethel bomber base, and the old runways were converted into a testing facility. The offices and design studios were based at nearby Ketteringham Hall, which became the headquarters of both Team Lotus and Lotus Cars. Additional car testing was carried out at Snetterton, a few miles from Hethel.

In 1969, the team spent a lot of time experimenting with a gas turbine powered car, and, after four wet races in 1968, with four wheel drive. Both were unsuccessful, especially as every race was dry. They penned a revolutionary new car for 1970 – the wedge-shaped Lotus 72.

The new Lotus 72 was a very innovative car, featuring torsion bar suspension, hip-mounted radiators, inboard front brakes and an overhanging rear wing. The 72 originally had suspension problems, and Jochen Rindt took a lucky victory in Monaco in the old 49 when Jack Brabham crashed on the last lap while leading. But when antidive and antisquat were designed out of the suspension, the car quickly showed its superiority, and Rindt dominated the championship until he was killed at Monza when a brake shaft broke. Rindt had only recently begun to wear a shoulder harness, but refused to wear crotch straps because he felt they slowed his exit from the car in the event of fire. When the car hit the barrier head-on, Rindt submarined forward and the lap belt inflicted fatal head and neck injuries.

The rest of the 1970 season was nailbiting, as Ferrari closed in on Rindt's undefended lead. A brilliant victory in the US GP by rookie driver Emerson Fittipaldi, who had made his debut in the British GP in a 49, sealed the championship for Rindt, who became the only man in history to win the world championship posthumously.

Lotus's 1971 experiments did not bring any serious advance in technology, but allowed Chapman to test several drivers. For 1972, the team focused again on the type 72 chassis, with Imperial Tobacco continuing its sponsorship of the team under its new John Player Special brand. The cars, now often referred to as 'JPS', were fielded in a new black and gold livery – a new brand developed to make the most of the promotional power of motorsport. Lotus took the championship by surprise in 1972 with 25-year-old Brazilian driver Emerson Fittipaldi, who became at the time the youngest world champion, a distinction he held until 2005, when 24-year-old Fernando Alonso took the accolade. Team Lotus also won the F1 World Championship for Manufacturers for a sixth time in 1973. The 72 raced in Formula 1 for five years, proving to be more successful than its supposed replacement, the Lotus 76. It was finally retired at the end of the 1975 season, as the Lotus 77 was prepared for the 1976 season.

The first-ever Formula Ford car was built around a Formula 3 Lotus, the Type 51.

Chapman was also successful at Indianapolis with the Lotus 29, almost winning the 500 at its first attempt in 1963 with Clark at the wheel. The race marked the beginning of the end for the old front-engined Indianapolis roadsters. Clark was leading when he retired from the 1964 event with suspension failure, but in 1965, he won the biggest prize in US racing driving his Lotus 38 and winning by a lap; it was the first mid-engined car to win the Indianapolis 500.

Many of Chapman's successes came from innovation. The Lotus 25 was the first monocoque chassis in F1, the 49 was the first car of note to use the engine as a stressed member, the Lotus 56 Indycar was powered by a gas turbine engine and was fitted with four-wheel drive, the Lotus 63 was the first mid-engined F1 car to race with four-wheel drive, and the 72 broke new ground in aerodynamics. Chapman was also an innovator as a team boss. For the 1968 season, the FIA decided to permit sponsorship after the withdrawal of support from automotive-related firms, such as BP, Shell and Firestone. In April, Team Lotus became the first works team (second only to Team Gunston entering a private Brabham car at the 1968 South African Grand Prix) to paint their cars in the livery of their sponsors, with Clark's Lotus 48 Formula Two car appearing at Hockenheim in the red, gold and white colors of Imperial Tobacco's Gold Leaf brand. The first Formula One car in this livery was Graham Hill's Lotus 49B car entered at the 1968 Spanish Grand Prix in Jarama.

Team Lotus as a constructor was first to achieve 50 Grand Prix victories. (Ferrari was the second to do so, having won their first Formula One race in 1951, seven years before the first Lotus F1 car.)

In the mid-to-late 1970s, Lotus experienced a resurgence with Mario Andretti joining the team. This came about the morning after the 1976 U.S. Grand Prix West at Long Beach, when Andretti's VPJ-Parnelli had proven uncompetitive. Bob Evans did not qualify his Lotus and Gunnar Nilsson, in the other Lotus 77, qualified 8th only to fall out with suspension failure before completing a lap. Chapman and Andretti ran into each other in a hotel coffee shop the morning after the race, and decided to join forces. Andretti's development expertise helped give new life to the then-moribund Lotus 77. Engineers began to investigate aerodynamic ground effects. The Lotus 78, and then the Lotus 79 of 1978 were extraordinarily successful, with Mario Andretti winning the F1 World Championship. Lotus attempted to take ground effects further with the Lotus 80 and Lotus 88. The team developed an all-carbon-fibre car, the Lotus 88, in 1981. The 88 was banned from racing for its 'twin chassis' technology where the driver had separate suspension from the aerodynamic parts of the car. McLaren's MP4/1 beat it as the first all-carbon-fibre car to race. Chapman was beginning work on an active suspension development programme when he died of a heart attack in December 1982 at the age of 54.

### 1980s

After Chapman's death, the racing team was continued by his widow, Hazel, and managed by Peter Warr, but a series of F1 designs proved unsuccessful since then. Midway through 1983 Lotus hired French designer Gérard Ducarouge and, in five weeks, he built the Renault turbo powered 94T. A switch to Goodyear tyres in 1984 enabled Elio de Angelis to finish third in the World Championship, despite the fact that the Italian did not win a race. The team also finished in 3rd place in the Constructors' Championship.

When Nigel Mansell departed at the end of the year the team hired Ayrton Senna. The Lotus 97T scored victories with de Angelis at Imola and Senna in Portugal and Belgium. The team, although it had now won three races instead of none, lost 3rd in the Constructors' Championship to Williams (who beat them on countback with 4 wins). Senna scored eight pole positions, with two wins (Spain and Detroit) in 1986 driving the evolutionary Lotus 98T. Lotus regained 3rd in the Constructors' Championship, passing Ferrari. At the end of the year the team lost its long-time backing from John Player & Sons and found new sponsorship with Camel. Senna's skills attracted the attention of the Honda Motor Company and when Lotus agreed to run Satoru Nakajima as its second driver a deal for engines was agreed. The Ducarouge-designed 99T featured active suspension, but Senna was able to win just twice: at Belgium and Austria, with the team again finishing 3rd in the Constructors' Championship, like the previous year behind British rivals Williams and McLaren, but ahead of Ferrari.

The Brazilian moved to McLaren in 1988, and Lotus signed Senna's countryman and then World Champion Nelson Piquet from Williams. Piquet secured a win in the season opener, but could only manage a handful of podiums in the rest of the season and finished the season in a distant third in the Championship on 38 points, 58 points behind Ferrari in second. The poor performance would see Honda leave to deal exclusively with McLaren for the season, and Lotus would use Judd engines for 1989. The underpowered Judd engines would see Lotus be shocked by a zero-points finish for the 1988 championship.

### 1990s

Piquet was disappointed with the performance of Lotus in 1989 and left for McLaren for 1990. Nakajimi also moved on to Tyrrell for 1990 as a deal was organized for Lamborghini V12 engines and Derek Warwick and Martin Donnelly were hired to drive for 1990. While a podium finish at the Canadian Grand Prix for Donnelly did promise an improvement for 1990, they would secure one more points finish with sixth in the penultimate Grand Prix in Japan. They finished seventh in the Championship with 5 points, and worse still, Camel withdrew their sponsorship.

Former Team Lotus employees Peter Collins and Peter Wright organized a deal to take over the team from the Chapman family and in December the new Team Lotus was launched with Mika Häkkinen and Martin Donnelly being signed for the 1991 season to drive updated Lotus 102Bs with the returning Judd engines. This would again see the Lotus team fail to secure a points finish all season and for the second time in three seasons they would fail to place in the standings. The team would drop Donnelly in place of Mark Blundell for 1992 and they would get Ford engines. However, despite some good performances they would again fail to score in 1992 and would not place that year. Despite the loss of Häkkinen, Lotus would sign Johnny Herbert and Alessandro Zanardi for 1993.

## Formula One record

### Season-by-season record

*The drivers noted are works Team Lotus drivers only (no private-only entrants).*

*A pink background denotes entries as Formula Two cars.*

*Drivers' champions in **bold**.*

Notes

* \* – Season still in progress.

### Wins

*For full list, see Team Lotus/Race Wins*

#### Milestone wins

*Includes private-only entrants.*

 10
 25
 50
 75

### Team Lotus driver Grand Prix count

Notes

* \* – Season still in progress.

## Notes

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 For the purposes of the World Constructors' Championship, a constructor is the combination of the person or body which designs the chassis and engine of the entry. Thus, Lotus-Climax and Lotus-BRM are recognised as separate entries in the championship.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 For the purposes of the World Constructors' Championship, a constructor is the combination of the person or body which designs the chassis and engine of the entry. Thus, Lotus-BRM, Lotus-Climax, and Lotus-Ford are recognised as separate entries in the championship.
3. ↑ Jean-Pierre Jarier raced with #55 when the team retired #6.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 For the purposes of the World Constructors' Championship, a constructor is the combination of the person or body which designs the chassis and engine of the entry. Thus, Lotus-Ford and Lotus-Renault are recognised as separate entries in the championship.

**1958**: Vanwall
**1959**: Cooper-Climax
**1961**: Ferrari
**1962**: BRM
**1963**: **Lotus**-Climax
**1964**: Ferrari
**1965**: **Lotus**-Climax
**1966**: Brabham-Repco
**1967**: Brabham-Repco
**1968**: **Lotus**-Ford
**1969**: Matra-Ford
**1971**: Tyrrell-Ford
**1972**: **Lotus**-Ford
**1973**: **Lotus**-Ford
**1974**: McLaren-Ford
**1975**: Ferrari
**1976**: Ferrari
**1977**: Ferrari
**1978**: **Lotus**-Ford
**1979**: Ferrari
**1981**: Williams-Ford
**1982**: Ferrari
**1983**: Ferrari
**1984**: McLaren-TAG
**1985**: McLaren-TAG
**1986**: Williams-Honda
**1987**: Williams-Honda
**1988**: McLaren-Honda
**1989**: McLaren-Honda
**1991**: McLaren-Honda
**1992**: McLaren-Ilmor