Some historical insights in to the operational issues at Lotus: - The biggest issue with the 102 (in fact all the way from the 101 to the 107) was eventually traced to a warped, improperly sealed wind-tunnel throwing off their designs massively. They fixed this in time for the 109 but by then they were lumbered with dog-slow engines, though that one shining high at Monza with a top-spec engine by Herbert, (who might honestly have been in the fight for the win if not at least a podium before being eliminated at turn 1) showed they actually still had really good designers and a lot of potential. Sadly by that point the debt, the criminal charges against the old guard and the stink of failure wouldn't wash off. - 640HP wasn't actually terrible for 1990, the problem was that it achieved that by revving absurdly high and produced comparatively poor torque. The bottom-of-the-barrel Ford and Judd V8s were about 30HP down but revved ~2000RPM lower and had much healthier torque curves meaning they could accelerate far better. - Blown diffusers were starting to catch on and Lotus weren't clued in. Newey is credited with having really brought the idea forward with his work for the Leyton House team and by 1990 Mclaren, Williams et al. were desperately trying to copy it. (In fact Williams went as far as to just hire Adrian outright.) Keep in mind there were no off-throttle exhaust blowing maps or such so cars with this feature were quite treacherous to balance in high-speed corners (see Senna's crash at Peraltada for a good example) but it was undeniably a performance advantage. - Lotus' organisation behind the scenes was a total shambles. Management were living off of pocket change and wishful thinking, the remaining talent in engineering and design was stretched to breaking point and the drivers were miserable. Communication between mechanics, engineers, management and drivers was bad and nobody seemed to be capable of getting everyone on the same page. There are documents floating around the internet from their 1992 season that show vividly how rudderless the ship was and how thin investment was getting. - The grid was _crowded._ In 1990 it was not unheard of for upwards of 32 to show up for a race in which only 26 - 28 could take part. Teams further down the grid had to invest significant resources in getting _to_ the race that the top teams didn't. Some smaller teams would willingly absolutely thrash an engines to make it through PreQ and Q knowing they'd suffer in the race just to try and attract sponsors.
The 102 was poor. 640hp was not enough from Lamborghini- it needed more power to offset its weight, thirst & cooling requirements! They didn’t develop the engine through the season either- Piquet was correct. The 102 was slab sided & was developed from the 101- so Warwick & Donnelly didn’t fit it either. Added to the lack of chassis strength & rigidity & no proper development budget I thought Warwick & Donnelly did an excellent job with it. They were always on the limit
I saw/herd the Lamborghini V12 in the Lola in 1989 in person at the USGP; it was even sweeter sounding than the Ferrari V12. Just an amazing noise I’ll never forget
8:48: Hilarious but spot on. " All noise and no go". And as for the Judd before that, the running joke not only on F1 but in other series which ran their engines was "Judd Stood for Dud"
Then ironically, lotus was have a brief resurgence in 1992. They had Herbert and Hakkinen for a strong driver pairing. They made the car to be simple, no nonsense and it was powered by a customer ford v8 engine which was decently powerful, was lightweight and had good fuel economy. Then they threw all that away in 93 by trying to run active suspension on their budget
@@Corvoreviews correct, the Lotus 107 was introduced in 1992, for 1993 they updated it to 107b. They even had a 107c variant in 1994 with the Mugen-Honda engine.
The 107 was derived from a March design that was never built. Yet even running customer Ford-Cosworth HB's was actually beyond thier budget, they were broke at the end of '93 - the same problem as Jordan in '91. There is an excellent 'Beyond the grid' interview with Peter Collins, he was heroic in trying to keep the team running on a shoestring budget, if only a big-ticket sponser had come on-board, but you can probably say that about the other mid-field teams that faded once aerodynamics and electronics started to advance.
@@paulthomas6609 what makes even more interesting they spending money on the active suspension, they've got decent results with the car in 92 (compared with 91 92 it was a miracle), I'm checking the results here, hakkinem almost got a podium with the car twice in 92, hebert almost got to the podium 3 TIMES on 93, so I think the main problem of lotus with the 107 was on the business front, because from pre qualify to almost podiuns em 2 years in sraight to me seens to be a team well planned to move foward
@@Corvoreviews At the end of 1990, Lotus packed up after the last race, went back to the factory, and declared bankrupt. The 107 was a good car, inherited from March/Leighton House falling apart, and in desperate need of some development money which Lotus didn't have.
Williams had naturally aspirated Judd engines in their cars in 1988. The general consensus and the view, especially from Nigel Mansell, was that they had no chance of competing with the Turbocharged cars of the other top teams that season. He said in an interview that at least he would have the chance to improve his golf!! That was obviously said tongue in cheek, but he actually had a point!! It was a shame to see the demise of Lotus in F1, especially as they were one of the front runners and strongest teams in the 1960's and 1970's.
I think 1988 was really the start if the decline of Lotus, they lost Senna, to mclaren, Lost there way, we're never really competitive again, Great shame, might have been different if Colin Chapman had still been alive??
Beautiful car. By the way, the Modena Lambo F1 car was a sight to behold too. Beautiful sounds and manual gear shifts : pilots of that era were Real Men.
After 2 years of putting blame to his drivers , and saying that Piquet was too old , Lotus finally got their man Warwick. And , go figure, Warwick managed to have less points than Piquet in 89, and Nelson was 3rd in the championship in 1990 . Lotus made shitty cars, and could not admit it
4:10 The insight of Piquet about Lamborghini is spot on. He's not a triple world champion for nothing... Excellent driver can "feel" and understand how good a team would be
A verdade é que a Lotus faliu pagando salários muito alto pro Piquet pilotando em 88 e 89 e a equipe foi deixando de lado as evoluções do carro, tanto no motor quanto no projeto do carro.
Piquet did the right thing by ditching Lotus. Got some podiums and even victories driving the Benetton. Lotus was never the same after Chapman died. Shame.
And to rub more salt on the 1989 Lotus wound - the Judd V8 engine the team had used wasn't even the newer EV V8 (exclusive tho the Brabham and March teams), but rather the less powerful CV version from 1988. Still, even with the power deficiencies Lotus managed to beat the "works" Judd teams. Also, history would repeat itself for Lotus in 1991 - after the shortlived Lamborghini partnership ended, Lotus returned to using Judd engines for 1991. And again, they weren't using the newer spec GV V10 (which was exclusively used by BMS Scuderia Italia), but the EV V8. This time Scuderia Italia (which was using Dallara chassis) beat Lotus in the standings thanks to a podium finish by JJ Lehto at Imola. During the same sesaon the four Lotus drivers (Mika Häkkinen, Johnny Herbert, Julian Bailey and Michael Bartels) failed to qualify 9 times in total (Scuderia Italia had 3 times where Emanuele Pirro failed to pre-qualify, but that's because the team had to go through this early in the season).
Press clutch pedal with foot. Change gear with right hand on gearstick. Why did they ever move away from that. I know technology gains speed but the raw ars on seat driving has gone
V12 are too heavy to go with the V8/V10 .... that is also why Prost got fired by Ferrari(V12) for criticising the V12 ... only after Schumacher came into Ferrari that they swap to V10. Another reason why it's under power is reliability. The V12 can only rev at 13000rpm max to manage reliability when the the V8 is at 16,500rpm
Schumy makes some good remarks on Ferrari V12 while he test the hybrid car with V12..... Even engineer have some second thoughs, but in the end they stick to the V10 plan
1:10 Aah, that's the Piquet i remember. Blaming other drivers for his own problem. I remember a similar incident on Hockenheim, when he compleley misjudged Salazar's braking distance.
@@ClassicFormulaOne1 Fair enough. To me it looked like Salazar was already on the edge of braking. It appeared that he could not brake deeper to prevent a collision.
@@Fastbikkel that could be, looks like Salazar's brakes were not working very well. If I look back at it then I see Salazar moving over for Piquet to be overtaken but somehow Salazar missed his braking point or had a braking problem, Piquet took a normal line and was already passed when Salazar rammed him. Looks really awkward, lapped cars should be extra careful but somehow Salazar going too fast.
@@Fastbikkel could be but Salazar knew he was being overtaken so he moved away from the racing line, the only thing for him to do after that was brake earlier to make the pass safe but somehow he screwed it up in my eyes :)
@@ClassicFormulaOne1 He moved away from the racing line? I will have to check that again, to me it appeared he was on the racing line in that chicane. Thanks for this discussion ;-)
But it was 1989 not even 1990 anyway must b the accent same as verstappen I am hoping you want him to lose this year yeah his head is becoming massive with all those egos that he has swallowed
@@alferrari3186 Verstappen has a southern dutch (Limburgian) accent and I don't. I speak the more regular dutch. I also think that native english speaking F1 drivers have a much more comfortable time then all the others. Speaking in your own language is far more easier. Imagine Russell or Hamilton would have to explain something in german or french lol. Finding the right words under pressure from the media is sometimes quite hard, especially in another language.
IT´S NOT LAMORDSHINI!!!!!!!!!!!! This prevented me from watching the rest of the video and potentially subscribing to the channel. All ruined in just seconds....
@@markusjuenemann I said ghini, not shini 🤗. Maybe your not familiar with the english way of pronouncing Lamborghini. Italians do it differently of course.
Listening to Derek Warwick blame all the cars from every team he was at as the reason to why he wasn't successful is hilarious! Hey Derek maybe you and your sh1tty driving was the Fkn problem? Every think about that? Here is the difference, even in the worst of the worst cars Senna could do amazing things especially in qualifying with the Toleman-Hart which I'm pretty sure was worse than anything Lotus produced. You can here Derek overrevving the bejezus out of the v12 on downshifts. That will kill any engine no matter who makes it. You would think he would change his style a little or ask for a gear ratio change since he doesn't understand where to downshift. But no Derek kept pounding away over revving the engine on downshifts. Of course Derek that will kill an engine and just blame the engine. Great drivers have mechanical sympathy and know the machineries limitations and drive at the limits within those boundaries. They don't crash or blow up engines every race and blame the car every single time. At some point you need to ask yourself maybe I'm just not good enough. Typical Derek though, loud mouth, if I had the right car I would be champion nonsense.
You can't beat the sound of the 3.5 litre normally aspirated engines. Wish they still sounded like that today.
A v12 sound alone not going to give u race wins a gud starting grid. It's bloody heavy and wheelbase is longer
Some historical insights in to the operational issues at Lotus:
- The biggest issue with the 102 (in fact all the way from the 101 to the 107) was eventually traced to a warped, improperly sealed wind-tunnel throwing off their designs massively. They fixed this in time for the 109 but by then they were lumbered with dog-slow engines, though that one shining high at Monza with a top-spec engine by Herbert, (who might honestly have been in the fight for the win if not at least a podium before being eliminated at turn 1) showed they actually still had really good designers and a lot of potential. Sadly by that point the debt, the criminal charges against the old guard and the stink of failure wouldn't wash off.
- 640HP wasn't actually terrible for 1990, the problem was that it achieved that by revving absurdly high and produced comparatively poor torque. The bottom-of-the-barrel Ford and Judd V8s were about 30HP down but revved ~2000RPM lower and had much healthier torque curves meaning they could accelerate far better.
- Blown diffusers were starting to catch on and Lotus weren't clued in. Newey is credited with having really brought the idea forward with his work for the Leyton House team and by 1990 Mclaren, Williams et al. were desperately trying to copy it. (In fact Williams went as far as to just hire Adrian outright.) Keep in mind there were no off-throttle exhaust blowing maps or such so cars with this feature were quite treacherous to balance in high-speed corners (see Senna's crash at Peraltada for a good example) but it was undeniably a performance advantage.
- Lotus' organisation behind the scenes was a total shambles. Management were living off of pocket change and wishful thinking, the remaining talent in engineering and design was stretched to breaking point and the drivers were miserable. Communication between mechanics, engineers, management and drivers was bad and nobody seemed to be capable of getting everyone on the same page. There are documents floating around the internet from their 1992 season that show vividly how rudderless the ship was and how thin investment was getting.
- The grid was _crowded._ In 1990 it was not unheard of for upwards of 32 to show up for a race in which only 26 - 28 could take part. Teams further down the grid had to invest significant resources in getting _to_ the race that the top teams didn't. Some smaller teams would willingly absolutely thrash an engines to make it through PreQ and Q knowing they'd suffer in the race just to try and attract sponsors.
Great insights thank you very much!
The 102 was poor. 640hp was not enough from Lamborghini- it needed more power to offset its weight, thirst & cooling requirements! They didn’t develop the engine through the season either- Piquet was correct.
The 102 was slab sided & was developed from the 101- so Warwick & Donnelly didn’t fit it either.
Added to the lack of chassis strength & rigidity & no proper development budget I thought Warwick & Donnelly did an excellent job with it. They were always on the limit
This was also the era of Senna and Prost. This is apart of the golden era of F1. Great content. Thank you.
I saw/herd the Lamborghini V12 in the Lola in 1989 in person at the USGP; it was even sweeter sounding than the Ferrari V12. Just an amazing noise I’ll never forget
So much more driver involvement. Cars sounded amazing. Racing has really regressed.
LAMBO NOISE V12🥰🥰🥰 Every people hear Lambo sound,it is diferente than Ferrari and Honda
That sounds, shape and color. One of my favorites, good job!
Props to donnelly, couldn't imagine getting back into the car that essentially ruined your career
Indeed amazing seeing hem go back into it, it not only ruined his career but also nearly costed him his life.
8:48: Hilarious but spot on. " All noise and no go". And as for the Judd before that, the running joke not only on F1 but in other series which ran their engines was "Judd Stood for Dud"
Then ironically, lotus was have a brief resurgence in 1992. They had Herbert and Hakkinen for a strong driver pairing. They made the car to be simple, no nonsense and it was powered by a customer ford v8 engine which was decently powerful, was lightweight and had good fuel economy. Then they threw all that away in 93 by trying to run active suspension on their budget
if I remember correctly they ran the 92 car for 3 years right? just modifying it
@@Corvoreviews correct, the Lotus 107 was introduced in 1992, for 1993 they updated it to 107b. They even had a 107c variant in 1994 with the Mugen-Honda engine.
The 107 was derived from a March design that was never built. Yet even running customer Ford-Cosworth HB's was actually beyond thier budget, they were broke at the end of '93 - the same problem as Jordan in '91. There is an excellent 'Beyond the grid' interview with Peter Collins, he was heroic in trying to keep the team running on a shoestring budget, if only a big-ticket sponser had come on-board, but you can probably say that about the other mid-field teams that faded once aerodynamics and electronics started to advance.
@@paulthomas6609 what makes even more interesting they spending money on the active suspension, they've got decent results with the car in 92 (compared with 91 92 it was a miracle), I'm checking the results here, hakkinem almost got a podium with the car twice in 92, hebert almost got to the podium 3 TIMES on 93, so I think the main problem of lotus with the 107 was on the business front, because from pre qualify to almost podiuns em 2 years in sraight to me seens to be a team well planned to move foward
@@Corvoreviews At the end of 1990, Lotus packed up after the last race, went back to the factory, and declared bankrupt. The 107 was a good car, inherited from March/Leighton House falling apart, and in desperate need of some development money which Lotus didn't have.
That car was so goddamn nervous! Even down the straight(s) it was manic, looking like it was gonna suddenly break loose in either direction.
Was für eine Gnade diesen Motor auf der langen Waldgerade in Hockenheim gehört zu haben
Great content! Cheers from Brazil 🇧🇷
Williams had naturally aspirated Judd engines in their cars in 1988. The general consensus and the view, especially from Nigel Mansell, was that they had no chance of competing with the Turbocharged cars of the other top teams that season. He said in an interview that at least he would have the chance to improve his golf!! That was obviously said tongue in cheek, but he actually had a point!! It was a shame to see the demise of Lotus in F1, especially as they were one of the front runners and strongest teams in the 1960's and 1970's.
I think 1988 was really the start if the decline of Lotus, they lost Senna, to mclaren, Lost there way, we're never really competitive again, Great shame, might have been different if Colin Chapman had still been alive??
Beautiful car. By the way, the Modena Lambo F1 car was a sight to behold too.
Beautiful sounds and manual gear shifts : pilots of that era were Real Men.
The 1991 Modena Lambo was a bit akward looking, bit outdated in my book but it sure was not ugly..and some nice colours ☺
ランボルギーニいい音でした 鈴鹿サーキットで聞きました❗
After 2 years of putting blame to his drivers , and saying that Piquet was too old , Lotus finally got their man Warwick. And , go figure, Warwick managed to have less points than Piquet in 89, and Nelson was 3rd in the championship in 1990 . Lotus made shitty cars, and could not admit it
4:10 The insight of Piquet about Lamborghini is spot on. He's not a triple world champion for nothing... Excellent driver can "feel" and understand how good a team would be
I love Lotus no matter what
Beautiful car
Great vid! Thanks for your good work, do more lol
I will soon!
@@ClassicFormulaOne1 Thanks, you will have my views!
How do you only have 342 subs? This was a great mini documentary
Thanks! Because this is only my 2nd seriously made video 🤗
Subs are rising and I will make al lot more videos this year 🌟🔥🌟
Exceptionally beautiful are these F1 cars in Camel colours, Great Video, thank you for being able to feast my eyes 😁
😃 More is coming
Great video, well done
Great audio of old school cars and their amazing screaming engines.
Absolutly amazibg content. Congratulations and thank you!!!
Happy you enjoyed it. See also my other videos in the F1 playlist ☺️
Lotus minus Colin Chapman was, sadly, not Lotus!
Une saison difficile...pauvre équipe Lotus , pauvre Martin Donnelly
I gont Martins signature at the British gp when he broke down at Abbey corner. When I was a wee school boy.
A verdade é que a Lotus faliu pagando salários muito alto pro Piquet pilotando em 88 e 89 e a equipe foi deixando de lado as evoluções do carro, tanto no motor quanto no projeto do carro.
Хорошо. Спасибо!
Piquet did the right thing by ditching Lotus. Got some podiums and even victories driving the Benetton.
Lotus was never the same after Chapman died. Shame.
True. However I like the lotus cars from 1992 and 1993 as well.
Intressant. Bedankt! ☺
And to rub more salt on the 1989 Lotus wound - the Judd V8 engine the team had used wasn't even the newer EV V8 (exclusive tho the Brabham and March teams), but rather the less powerful CV version from 1988. Still, even with the power deficiencies Lotus managed to beat the "works" Judd teams. Also, history would repeat itself for Lotus in 1991 - after the shortlived Lamborghini partnership ended, Lotus returned to using Judd engines for 1991. And again, they weren't using the newer spec GV V10 (which was exclusively used by BMS Scuderia Italia), but the EV V8. This time Scuderia Italia (which was using Dallara chassis) beat Lotus in the standings thanks to a podium finish by JJ Lehto at Imola. During the same sesaon the four Lotus drivers (Mika Häkkinen, Johnny Herbert, Julian Bailey and Michael Bartels) failed to qualify 9 times in total (Scuderia Italia had 3 times where Emanuele Pirro failed to pre-qualify, but that's because the team had to go through this early in the season).
Press clutch pedal with foot. Change gear with right hand on gearstick. Why did they ever move away from that. I know technology gains speed but the raw ars on seat driving has gone
You can't say this car didn't sound great.
That Lambo V12! 🤤
Brilliant video
Thank you, many will follow!
of all the camel lotuses cars, the 1990 was the most beautifull one
I think so too
V12 are too heavy to go with the V8/V10 .... that is also why Prost got fired by Ferrari(V12) for criticising the V12 ... only after Schumacher came into Ferrari that they swap to V10.
Another reason why it's under power is reliability. The V12 can only rev at 13000rpm max to manage reliability when the the V8 is at 16,500rpm
Schumy makes some good remarks on Ferrari V12 while he test the hybrid car with V12..... Even engineer have some second thoughs, but in the end they stick to the V10 plan
4 more cylinders and only 30 more hp, that was a waste of time. All that extra weight and fuel,
Não era um carro de corrida ,era uma carroça assassina!
Só em 1993 e 1994 que a lótus fez um carro descente!!!!
the 1992 and 1993 Lotus were pretty good :)
Mooi gedaan hoor @nobullshit!
haha Thx
aaaah yes. a Dutchy
Better audio plz plz plz 😢
The audio is great. Maybe you need a better device 🔉
Peter Warr had a reputation for being difficult.
Probably yes, but I also think Ron Dennis, Flavio Briatore, Colin Chapman etc were not easy. At that level it's eat or be eaten.
Gek, maar het kan nog gekker.
1:10 Aah, that's the Piquet i remember. Blaming other drivers for his own problem.
I remember a similar incident on Hockenheim, when he compleley misjudged Salazar's braking distance.
In my humble opinion: Salazar was the only one to blame at Hockenheim 1982 🤗
@@ClassicFormulaOne1 Fair enough. To me it looked like Salazar was already on the edge of braking. It appeared that he could not brake deeper to prevent a collision.
@@Fastbikkel that could be, looks like Salazar's brakes were not working very well. If I look back at it then I see Salazar moving over for Piquet to be overtaken but somehow Salazar missed his braking point or had a braking problem, Piquet took a normal line and was already passed when Salazar rammed him. Looks really awkward, lapped cars should be extra careful but somehow Salazar going too fast.
@@Fastbikkel could be but Salazar knew he was being overtaken so he moved away from the racing line, the only thing for him to do after that was brake earlier to make the pass safe but somehow he screwed it up in my eyes :)
@@ClassicFormulaOne1 He moved away from the racing line?
I will have to check that again, to me it appeared he was on the racing line in that chicane.
Thanks for this discussion ;-)
Your English is not gud u said 99
Where?
At the beginning man u said 99
@@alferrari3186 no mate, I said nineteen-ninety, not nineteen-ninety-nine. But I have a dutch accent so probably it's not as clear for everybody 🤗
But it was 1989 not even 1990 anyway must b the accent same as verstappen I am hoping you want him to lose this year yeah his head is becoming massive with all those egos that he has swallowed
@@alferrari3186 Verstappen has a southern dutch (Limburgian) accent and I don't. I speak the more regular dutch.
I also think that native english speaking F1 drivers have a much more comfortable time then all the others. Speaking in your own language is far more easier. Imagine Russell or Hamilton would have to explain something in german or french lol. Finding the right words under pressure from the media is sometimes quite hard, especially in another language.
IT´S NOT LAMORDSHINI!!!!!!!!!!!! This prevented me from watching the rest of the video and potentially subscribing to the channel. All ruined in just seconds....
Nobody is saying Lamordshini in this vid 🙄
@@ClassicFormulaOne1 0:20/0:21 "...about the Lotus-Lambordshini..."
@@markusjuenemann I said ghini, not shini 🤗. Maybe your not familiar with the english way of pronouncing Lamborghini. Italians do it differently of course.
@@ClassicFormulaOne1 By now the whole world knows, it's pronounced the italian way. And it isn't exactly difficult to that right.
@@markusjuenemann thanks for your comment.
Listening to Derek Warwick blame all the cars from every team he was at as the reason to why he wasn't successful is hilarious! Hey Derek maybe you and your sh1tty driving was the Fkn problem? Every think about that? Here is the difference, even in the worst of the worst cars Senna could do amazing things especially in qualifying with the Toleman-Hart which I'm pretty sure was worse than anything Lotus produced. You can here Derek overrevving the bejezus out of the v12 on downshifts. That will kill any engine no matter who makes it. You would think he would change his style a little or ask for a gear ratio change since he doesn't understand where to downshift. But no Derek kept pounding away over revving the engine on downshifts. Of course Derek that will kill an engine and just blame the engine. Great drivers have mechanical sympathy and know the machineries limitations and drive at the limits within those boundaries. They don't crash or blow up engines every race and blame the car every single time. At some point you need to ask yourself maybe I'm just not good enough. Typical Derek though, loud mouth, if I had the right car I would be champion nonsense.