Lotus - The Rise Of A Phoenix

in HISTORY by admin — March 13, 2010 at 7:34 am | 5 comments

Lotus F1: the Rise of a Phoenix

On the 15^th September last year, the FIA officially announced that the Lotus F1 team had been given an entry for the 2010 World Championship as a substitute for the withdrawn outfit of BMW-Sauber. With this declaration, the international motorsport federation opened the door for the return of one of the most successful racing teams in the history of Formula One. Especially in the 1960s and 1970s, the Lotus team achieved some great successes with drivers as Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi or Mario Andretti. Now that the start of the 2010 season is awaiting us in the days to come, it is about time to look back at the epic history of the legendary Team Lotus.

Foundation and Early Achievements

Team Lotus was founded in 1952 by its laurelled owner Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman, who’s initials ACBC are at present day still part of the official logo of Lotus Cars. After spending a couple of years in racing, the team was ready to participate in Formula One by 1958. Graham Hill and Cliff Allison were hired as drivers and Climax took care of the engines. In its debut season, Lotus managed to score three championship points, a good result for a new team. 1959 saw a little improvement as Hill, Innes Ireland and Peter Lovely managed to grasp five points. A foundation for success had been fruitfully laid.

In 1960 Team Lotus began to build on this as Ireland finished fourth in the overall standings. He also managed to grab some victories at non-official races at for instance Goodwood or Silverstone. Furthermore, the promising Jim Clark had been signed as second driver. In 1961 the team’s first official F1 victory followed, as again Innes Ireland was able to keep Dan Gurney behind at Watkins Glen, despite running out of fuel quickly. An era of more glory was about to begin soon after. In 1962 Chapman’s team built the revolutionary Lotus 25, the first car with a semi monocoque construction instead of a steal frame. Although former Lotus driver Graham Hill secured the world championship in his BRM, Jim Clark came really close to winning Lotus’s first title with it.

The 1960s: Hungry for More Success

One year later Clark and Lotus were ready for it and with seven victories the Scotsman secured his and Lotus’s first world championship. In the years that followed, Lotus kept on fighting for victories and championships with Clark at the wheel. In 1965 another championship win was celebrated. Two years later Graham Hill returned to the team and with a line up including both him and Clark, Team Lotus was feared by all its opponents. The future looked bright and the outfit looked destined to more titles and wins, especially because more innovative discoveries such as an engine in the back of the car were successfully introduced at turn of the decade.

Fate stroke hard however when in April 1968 Jim Clark was killed in a Formula Two crash in a race in Hockenheim. As one of the best drivers Formula One had ever witnessed, Clark had become a very good personal friend of Colin Chapman and his loss really devastated the latter. Graham Hill nonetheless kept on winning and made sure that Lotus could celebrate its third world championship in that very same year. He did so in the first F1 car with a livery that was based on the colors of its main sponsor, Gold Leaf. Due to some flopped technical experiments and a horrible crash in which Hill broke both his legs, 1969 did not bring too much for Lotus, but 1970 looked more promising as the star of young Austrian driver Jochen Rindt was rising rapidly.

The 1970s: at a Deadly Pace

The seventies started pretty well for Team Lotus. The injured Hill was replaced by juvenile Emerson Fittipaldi and Rindt was performing that well that nothing seemed to be able to withhold him from winning Lotus’s fourth driver’s championship. Death though had not lost the Lotus drivers out of sight yet and hit the team ferociously again when Rindt crashed very hard in the free practice sessions of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. He passed away as a result of his injuries. Nevertheless, no driver was able to jump over Rindt in the championship standings in the three remaining races and as a result the Austrian still is the only Formula One driver who became world champion posthumously.

In the years immediately after Rindt’s fatal accident, Team Lotus shifted its focus to Fittipaldi. It did not take the Brazilian too long to become an outstanding driver, clinching three podiums and finishing sixth in the 1971 standings. One season later, 25-year-old Fittipaldi crowned himself the youngest world champion ever till that moment by winning five Grand Prix and beating Jackie Stewart. 1972 was also the first season in which Team Lotus’s cars were fielded in the legendary black and gold livery of sponsor John Player’s Special. However, after a less successful 1973, Fittipaldi left the outfit to drive for rival team McLaren. A less glorious epoch followed and it took the team until the introduction of the revolutionary Lotus 79 in 1978 before fighting its way back to the top.

The Lotus 79, also known as the ‘wing car’, is without a doubt one of the most innovative F1 cars ever build. Because of a spectacular amount of downforce generated by the so-called ground effect, the 79 was practically unbeatable. Drivers Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson dominated the 1978 championship with it, even though they started the season with the old Lotus 78. For a long time it seemed both team mates had to challenge for the title till the last race, but at the Italian Grand Prix death hit again and took the life of Peterson in a first lap collision. Andretti finally won the world title, but again a Lotus championship had been overshadowed by the passing away of a driver.

The 1980s: a Long Way Down

Andretti’s title turned out to be the last one ever won by a Lotus driver. The successors of the Lotus 79, named Lotus 80 and Lotus 88, were simply not good enough to keep on scoring off rivaling teams. Furthermore, team principal Colin Chapman died on the 16^th December 1982 because of a heart attack, at the age of only 54. The death of its founder and inspirer hit Team Lotus thoroughly. Although Peter Warr proved to be an adequate replacement for Chapman, the team never really got it going as in ancient times and truly lost some of its gleam after Chapman passed away. To add to the drama, wing cars were officially banned from the sport in 1983, which meant that Lotus’s winning design was now illegal.

Despite of all the misfortune, the team did not collapse completely. Drivers such as Nigel Mansell or Elio de Angelis were able to put in some good results in the early 1980s, although neither of them did win any races. Things altered when Ayrton Senna was hired by the team in 1985. The talented and young Brazilian was at speed from the moment he installed himself in the cockpit and with Senna at the wheel Lotus’s chances turned. Three races were won by the youngster in 1985, which nurtured a third place in the championship’s final standings. 1986 and 1987 proved to be rewarding as well, as Senna won two races each season. However, although Lotus did provide the future champion with a good car, Senna was never really able to fight for the world titles. As a result, it did not take the team by surprise when he decided to change sides and drive for McLaren from 1988 on.

Senna was replaced by triple world champion Nelson Piquet, who was paired by Senna’s former team mate Satoru Nakajima. Both drivers tried the best they could, but did not manage to repeat Senna’s outstanding performances. Lotus slowly came in a downhill spiral again, but this time there would not be any recovering. No more races were won and at the team finished only fourth in the constructor’s championship in 1988 and sixth in 1989. By the end of the decade Peter Warr was asked to step down as team manager and both Piquet and Nakajima were replaced by Derek Warwick and Martin Donnelly. Lotus was about to make a fresh start once again.

The 1990s: the Final Laps

Tony Rudd took over the helm from the start of the 1990 season, but the change of line up and management did not alter Team Lotus’s fortunes. Moreover, the Lamborghini V12 engines that powered the cars did not bring what the team had hoped for. Derek Warwick was the only driver to score points, three in total, which meant an eight place for the team in the final standings of the constructor’s championship. At the end of the season, Lotus’s main sponsor Camel withdrew its sponsorship money and Peter Collins became the outfit’s new team principal.

1991 started difficultly because no sponsors were found to replace Camel, but drivers Mika Häkkinen and Johnny Herbert managed to revive Lotus for one more time with some good results in 1991 and 1992. The performances of both youngsters were noticed by several top teams, including McLaren, which signed Häkkinen for 1993. Herbert however remained loyal to the team until its bankruptcy in 1994. In what were to be the final seasons of Team Lotus, he was paired by Pedro Lamy and Alessandro Zanardi variably. Both drivers were not able to perform at the same level as Herbert though and the team’s final situation worsened rapidly in the meantime.

After the 1994 Italian Grand Prix, Peter Collins decided therefore to put the team for sale. Not long after, David Hunt, brother of 1976 world champion James Hunt, bought the team but he also could not avoid Team Lotus slipping away, partly because he was also busy setting up a new team called Pacific. As a result of this, Team Lotus’s facilities were closed after the 1994 season. The historical outfit that had won six driver’s championships, seven constructor’s titles and a total of 79 Grand Prix victories no longer was.

2010: the Return of a Legend

None the less, a new team will participate in F1 under the legendary Lotus name this season. After an absence of fifteen years, the team will now race under the Malaysian flag as team owner Tony Fernandes firmed a deal with Malaysian car manufacturer Proton, which is in possession of the Lotus Cars trade mark. A new factory in Norfolk, England, was opened recently and the experienced Mike Gascoyne has been put into charge of the technical division of the team. Last January, Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen were signed as racing drivers and Malaysia’s hope for the nearby F1 future, Fairuz Fauzy, was appointed as official test and reserve driver.

At the test sessions in February in Jérez de la Frontera and Barcelone, Lotus tried the best it could to put in some good lap times and although the gap with the top teams turned out to be quite huge, the reborn legend managed to go faster than the other new team, Virgin. Given the little time in which the whole operation had to be set up, this can be judged as a pretty good performance on which the team can certainly build. Let us hope that this will come true and that Trulli and Kovalainen will make Colin Chapman’s spirit revive. May Lotus rise as a phoenix from the ashes from the very moment they start their engines.

Ewout Rutgers