The cars were evolutions, not breaking down new doors. The next major step for the team was in fact human, in the arrival of Ayrton Senna. Peter Warr took over the team, Gerard Ducarouge the technology. Elio de Angelis won in 1982 (the first since Chapman’s death), but that was a champagne blip in a downward trend.
Innovations came and went, unsuccessfully (twin chassis, all carbon cars etc). The 78, and especially the gorgeous 79, exemplified the thoughts and strengths of the DFV and ground effect, culminating in a neat and tidy car which brought the team back to superiority. Chapman suddenly had a big hill to climb.Īndretti and Peterson 1978 (image- Cahier Archive) For 1974, Lotus lost Fittipaldi to McLaren, and the legendary Lotus 72 was out of date, having finished its winning ways. Team Lotus won the 1973 constructors title before a period of relative struggle during the mid 1970s.
Innovations & stars: Ford Cosworth DFV, wings, monocoque, Jim Clark, Graham Hill Further driver titles for Jochen Rindt (1970),Emerson Fittipaldi (1972), and Mario Andretti (1978) completed ‘Chap-man-ter’ One era in the Team Lotus history book – largely dominated by the Lotus 72 and its offspring Team Lotus and the Scotsman won again in 1965 and Hill took the crown in 1968 after Clark’s death. A derivative of the record-setting engine was still winning races in 1983.įord-Cosworth DFV (image- Cahier Archive) It was soon the obvious “must have” engine plant, and clinched the 1968 constructors with the subtle addition of front and rear wings to the Lotus 49, another first in Formula 1. The ground-breaker was the Cosworth DFV engine built with Ford for 1967. It was the first of six Team Lotus drivers titles between 1963 and1978. That ’63 season was dominant, Clark scoring almost twice as many points as his closest chasers, Graham Hill and Richie Ginther, and it just the start of great success to come for the Hethel, Norfolk team. The team was led by the renowned innovator Colin Chapman. And what a long, extraordinary, tangled, successful and intriguing story the marque has produced since its first F.īy 1963, Lotus was in control, seven wins for Jim Clark, saw Clark take his and the first titles for Team Lotus. January 2013, the latest chapter in the Lotus F1 book was written with the launch of the E21.
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