Lotus, F1 constructor

De Ferran and David Coulthard went on to enjoy long and successful careers in motorsport after their year together at Paul Stewart Racing in 1990. The Brazilian IndyCar legend reflected on their season together and explained why Formula 1 veteran Coulthard was his favourite team-mate.Three front runners emerge when Motorsport.com asks two-time CART Indycar champion de Ferran for his favourite ...

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The tally of seven constructors? and six drivers? titles doesn?t reveal the innovation that Colin Chapman?s team brought to the sport.
Many great drivers raced Lotus machinery between its F1 arrival in 1958 and Team Lotus folding in 1994. That made producing this list tricky, but here?s our pick of the top 10 Lotus F1 drivers.
We?ve considered the amount of success the drivers ...

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Born Hazel Williams, she met Chapman at a dance in 1944, and Chapman's first car ? what became known as the Lotus Mark 1 ? was built around an Austin 7 chassis in a lock-up garage at the rear of her parents' house in Hornsey, North London, in 1948.
She took over the development of the trials car and its Ford-powered successor, the Mark 2, after Colin was briefly commissioned into the Royal ...

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The cars have been loaned by Juan Gonzalez, chairman of the board of Mission Foods, one of Arrow McLaren SP IndyCar team?s sponsors, who was primary on Juan Pablo Montoya?s Indy 500 entry this year.
The exhibit will ?offer opportunities to educate visitors about extreme vehicle aerodynamics, unusual materials such as soft racing tire rubber and other unique facets of F1 car design and ...

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Today is the anniversary of the car's first appearance at the 1978 Belgian GP, a race it duly won and whose appearance prompted a development war in F1 as rivals realised they too needed to follow its ground effect concept.
However, the Lotus 79 was not the team's first foray into 'ground effect', but rather a refinement of a solution it had introduced a year earlier with the 78.
A happy ...

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Johnny Dumfries had impeccable credentials when he was signed up to be Ayrton Senna?s team-mate at Lotus for 1986. He was a British Formula 3 Champion, and a dominant one at that. He?d been test driver for Ferrari. And he?d raced in Formula 3000. That wasn?t the CV of a driver who was going to jump into a grand prix-winning car and end up with just three championship points to his name at ...

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However, as Giorgio Piola reveals, while rivals feared the concept, its drivers were not convinced the 88 would have delivered on the track.
How did it work? In our video above, Jake Boxall-Legge guides you through Chapman's complex idea to make ground effect cars more user-friendly.

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Ground effect is a catch-all term used to describe the aerodynamic principle applied to the cars designed during that era.
The designs, also known as 'wing cars', included large Venturi tunnels housed under the sidepods that reached the back of the car.
To take maximum advantage of the Venturis, Lotus pioneered a skirt solution too, which was hung from the edge of the sidepod and touched the ...

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Southgate explains how the 79 was a ?cleaned-up version? of the 78 chassis, which he pioneered along with Peter Wright to use ?skirts? to seal the sidepods.
He talks through the design secrets of the car at the Autosport International Show, where the beautiful black-and-gold machine was on display.

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Now that was a car! The Lotus 78
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