For Colin Chapman's team, the 1981 season begins with the Lotus 81B, already brought to the track on four occasions in 1980 by the third driver Nigel Mansell who this year becomes the owner alongside the confirmed Elio de Angelis. Despite the good performances of the single-seater that allow the Italian driver to conquer two points in the first races of the season, the team of technicians led by Colin Chapman and made up of Peter Wright, Tony Rudd and Martin Ogilvie, has been working for some time to bring the revolutionary Lotus 88 with which we want to maximize the downforce created by the ground effect without using the sliding skirts, banned this season after the tragic accident that caused Depailler's death in August '80 and caused precisely by the failure sudden of a miniskirt.
 |
| LOTUS 88, Elio de Angelis Long Beach, USA West GP 1981 |
The regulation now imposes a minimum distance of 6 cm from the ground with any part of the car and the various teams try to devise more or less regulatory solutions to overcome this impediment. Brabham is the first team to escape the rules using a hydropneumatic suspension system that compresses as the aerodynamic load increases, thus bringing the car closer to the asphalt and improving performance so much that all the other teams try to copy them. In fact, in this period the "set-up corrector" was born, which will be talked about so much in the coming seasons and which acts on the suspension by lowering the car once on the track and then bringing it back to the regulation six centimeters every time the car returns to the pits, where is potentially subject to verification.
 |
| LOTUS 88 Imola, San Marino GP 1981 |
Not finding a way to carry out checks in the race, the FIA “turns a blind eye" to this expedient that practically all the teams adopt, while Chapman decides to follow another path, much more creative and elaborate but on which, unfortunately for him, the FIA finds the regulatory basis to make it illegal. It all starts with the Lotus 86, designed when sliding skirts were legal, and of which only one prototype was built that has never seen the track. When side skirts are banned, Wright studies the car's behavior without side appendages to understand its performance in this new configuration. The loss of performance is minimal and consequently the new Lotus 88 is designed as a direct evolution of the "86", but using an ingenious system consisting of two frames, one inside the other.
 |
| LOTUS 88, double frame structure |
The innermost frame is the classic monocoque of modern wing-cars that houses the passenger compartment and is cushioned independently of the external one, which is instead designed to withstand the pressure generated by the ground effect and has no wing surfaces as it is a huge system. to generate downforce, which starts just behind the nose of the car and extends to the rear wheels. Once brought to the track by Mansell and de Angelis, the car turns out to be a disaster due to the difficult management of the air flows which, passing between the two frames, create instability at high speeds. To manage the weight of the two frames, Chapman's team makes extensive use of carbon and Kevlar making the “88”, together with the McLaren MP4 / 1, the first single-seater equipped with a synthetic fiber frame. The 88 is tested in free practice of the first two Grands Prix of the season, but without being taken to the race. The FIA, after the necessary technical checks, by asserting that the double chassis violates the rules as it is to be considered a mobile aerodynamic surface, excludes the car from competitions.
 |
| LOTUS 88, Elio de Angelis Long Beach, USA West GP 1981 |
The Lotus team, having presented itself at Imola with only the “88” chassis, cannot take part in the San Marino Grand Prix. Chapman, stubbornly convinced that the car is regular, re-introduces the 88 in version "B" for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone but the FIA decrees the immediate withdrawal of the car, under penalty of disqualification of the team from the '81 world championship. Chapman is therefore forced to retrace his steps and return to the "87" model with which he will conclude the season that has just begun. The internal chassis, some aerodynamic components and the general configuration of the "88" will still be used successfully on the next Lotus 91 which will be presented in 1982.
Comments
Post a Comment