Indeed, had they stepped in more quickly to rid the sport of ground effect cars, a series of terrifying crashes might have been avoided – and lives might have been saved.

Another Lotus innovation

Ground effects was another innovation brought to F1 by Colin Chapman’s Lotus team. It was borne of an idea of making the entire car function as one giant wing to increase downforce.

It was also one of the first developments to be discovered using a wind tunnel. The team observed that when the outer edges of the car’s sidepods reached the floor it generated a massive increase in downforce. It created a low pressure area beneath the car, sucking it down.

Applying that theoretical observation to the track proved difficult. The Lotus 78 (a.k. the John Player Special Mark III) of 1977 was the first car to attempt it and did boast substantially better grip than its predecessor. But poor reliability ruined the team’s season.

The team continued into 1978 with a modified version of the 78 but really hit its stride when it brought the 79 out for its first race. At Zolder, the sixth round of the season, drivers Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson destroyed the opposition, finishing first and second by a comfortable margin. They repeated the feat next time out in Jarama, Spain.

A focus on tidying up the aerodynamics of the car made the 79 a leap forward over its predecessor and every other car in the field. The rear bodywork was all-enveloping and the front and rear suspension was brought within it to keep the airflow as smooth as possible.

Chapman used every trick to keep the back of the car as neat as possible – even lobbying for a change in the rules that allowed the car to have a single fuel tank. This allowed him to move the cockpit forward, insert the fuel tank between the driver and the engine, and tidy up the rear of the car accordingly.

Lotus won eight of the season’s 16 races – total dominance by 1978 standards. But their double title win was, as so often in Lotus’s history, marred by tragedy. Ronnie Peterson died of complications following in accident at the start of the Italian Grand Prix, where Andretti became drivers’ champion.

Out of control

The team also lost the plot on design. Chapman targeted an aggressive development of the ground effects concept for the 1979 car, the Lotus 80. But rival constructors Ligier and Williams beat him by allying the ground effects to a more rigid chassis structure.

Lotus won nothing in 1979 – but ground effects continued to dominate. And the gigantic cornering speeds they created saw lap times tumble. Alan Jones’ pole position time for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone of 1’11.880 (236.324kph / 146.845 mph) was 6.61s quicker than James Hunt’s of two year’s previously.

By 1980 escalating cornering speeds was becoming a real concern. It was the focal point of a furious dispute between the governing body FISA, typically supported by the manufacturer teams Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo, and the constructors’ association FOCA, led by Brabham boss Bernie Ecclestone.

Simply put, FISA wanted to ban ground effects because of the dangerously high cornering speeds they allowed, and the fact that if one of the ‘skirts’ broke it could send a car off the track at massive speed with no warning for the driver.

FOCA resisted – its teams largely used Cosworth engines that were less powerful than those of the richer manufacturers, and more effective chassis design using ground effects provided them with a means of levelling the playing field.

A series of accidents escalating in severity put pressure on FISA President Jean-Marie Balestre to act. In testing for the German Grand Prix Alfa Romeo driver Patrick Depailler was killed when his car speared straight on at the high speed Ostkurve.

His death was blamed in part on the fact that the safety fencing on the corner had not been erected. But the massive cornering speed of his ground effect car was a contributory factor.

The following season brought a controversial ban on skirts. But designers quickly found a gaping hole in the regulations: The undersides of the cars were only required to be flat when the car was in the pits.

Brabham’s Gordon Murray was first to cotton on to this and he produced an ingenious solution for his BT49 which automatically lowered the skirts while the car was on the track. With that advantage Nelson Piquet destroyed the opposition in the Argentinian Grand Prix.

Teams began copying the system – albeit using a crude lever operated by the driver instead of Murray’s complex hydraulics – and soon every car in the field was legal in the pits but illegal as they lapped the circuit.

FISA gave up the fight and re-legalised skirts for 1982. The consequences were dire.

Disaster and near misses

By now many of the leading teams were using turbo engines which required substantially more fuel than before. Thus drivers were perched at the front of explosively powerful turbo cars that cornered so quickly they could barely see.

This much was obvious at the second race of the year in Brazil when the winner, Nelson Piquet, collapsed on the podium from the exertion of manhandling his Brabham BT49D around the fast circuit in scorching Rio de Janeiro heat. His team mate Riccardo Patrese retired after losing his bearings and almost collapsing at the wheel.

Much worse was to follow. In qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix Gilles Villeneuve tagged the back of Jochen Mass’s March and Villeneuve’s Ferrari was launched into the air. It hit the ground nose-first with such force that it likely killed Villeneuve instantly. The Ferrari disintegrated and threw its driver across the track.

The accident horrified the sport but, like Depailler’s death, it was immediately blamed on another mitigating factor – qualifying tyres. Villeneuve had previously complained about the dangers of trying to post a quick qualifying lap under high pressure on tyres that only provided grip for a lap or so. And those were exactly the circumstances in which he was killed.

With the benefit of hindsight it is fair to say that, although the pressures of qualifying played a role in Villeneuve’s death – as did his fall-out with team mate Didier Pironi, the vicious nature of the ground effect cars had a hand in it too.

Two months later at the Dutch Grand Prix the suspension on Rene Arnoux’s Renault collapsed under the enormous pressure generated by ground effects. He ploughed into the tyre barrier at Tarzan corner, mercifully stopping short of the crowd.

An even luckier escaped followed later in July. During the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard Mauro Baldi’s Arrows and Mass’s car tangled, firing Mass’s burning car into the spectator enclosure. In that terrifying moment pure fortune alone spared Formula 1 from suffering its own equivalent of the 1955 Le Mans disaster – no one was killed.

But at the German Grand Prix in August Pironi was not so lucky. Much has been written about his state of mind going into that race, and many have speculated why he was even bothering to lap the Hockenheimring in the pouring rain in qualifying when he already had pole position.

In thick spray he drove straight into the back of Alain Prost’s Renault at undiminished speed. His Ferrari arched into the air and ploughed its nose into the ground. Pironi survived, but his legs were terribly broken in many places, and he never raced an F1 car again.

The catalogue of traumas prompted FISA to act, and flat bottomed cars were made mandatory for 1983. Ground effects were gone.

Lessons had been learned from beyond Formula 1 too. In America the Indy Car series had begun using ground effect cars. In practice for the Indianapolis 500 Gordon Smiley was killed in a crash of appalling violence, hitting a concrete wall nose-first. The impact was so great his crash helmet was wrenched from his head with the chin strap still fastened.

Perhaps it would be possible for modern single seater racing cars to employ full ground effect trim – but modern safety standards would demand enormous compromises.

Enormous run-off areas would put spectators a long way from the action, street racing would be out of the question, and drivers would need the kind of gravity suits used by fighter pilots.

It’s not hard to reach the conclusion that ground effects had to be banned.

Read every article in the ‘Banned!’ series – from turbos to slicks to the ‘fan car’ and more

• Banned! archive

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It put Renault’s championship defence in jeopardy and seriously questioned the impartiality of the FIA. Many in the paddock suggested the governing body were trying to engineer a final championship victory for the retiring Michael Schumacher.

In a strange situation the FIA and their own stewards were at odds with each other over the system’s legality – which did little to persuade anyone that the banning of the system was fair.

Renault began developing its mass damper late in 2005 and was used on the R25 in the last races of the season.

The system essentially consisted of a sprung weight enclosed within the car to dampen the pitching as it rode over bumps. Originally it was only used at the front of the car.

As is common practice with new technologies, Renault supplied the FIA with details of the system. The governing body agreed it was safe and legal to use.

Renault’s 2006 challenger, the R26, was designed with the system in mind from its conception. For 2006 the mass dampers would also be fitted to the rear of the car.

The dampers proved particularly beneficial on the Michelin-shod cars. Inevitably, other teams got wind of what Renault were doing and built their own copies. But none were able to find as much of a benefit from the system as Renault were.

At this point the politicking began. Renault made a strong start to 2006 and other teams questioned the legality of the dampers. The matter came before the stewards at the German Grand Prix who agreed that the system was legal.

Then, astonishingly, the FIA appealed against the stewards’ verdict. A date for a hearing was set following the next round in Hungary and Renault, wisely, opted not to run the mass dampers until further notice.

At the Hockenheimring their drivers struggled home fifth and sixth while Ferrari romped to a one-two.

On August 23rd the FIA International Court of Appeal ruled Renault’s mass dampers illegal. They cited article 3.15 of the Formula One Technical Regulations – claiming the system constituted a moveable aerodynamic device.

This was surprising. Clearly, the device was internal and so did not have a direct aerodynamic effect. Indeed, it was hard to see how it was a moveable aerodynamic device any more than conventional suspension was.

Renault’s ire was compounded by the fact that the banning came during the summer testing ban, inhibiting their ability to test alternative parts. At the following round in Istanbul Ferrari raced with new extended brake fairings in the rear wheel hubs, which seemed like a much more obvious example of a moveable aerodynamic device.

Renault claimed the loss of the system cost them 0.3s per lap. Over the final races of the season Ferrari were decisively faster than Renault, yet the French team still persevered in both championship battles.

How can the FIA can be happy to reinterpret rules in the middle of a season, potentially causing great problems for a team and throwing the championship into disrepute? How can they be content to publicly challenge the verdict of their own stewards?

The mass damper affair was another clear example of the flaws in the FIA’s system of technical protests.

Related links

• Banned! archive
• Damper D-Day

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It was banned early in 1998 as McLaren made a stunningly dominant start to the year. Following a protest by Ferrari the system, that had previously been declared legal, was outlawed.

Many at the time suggested political motives were at work – and a desire to keep McLaren from getting too far ahead.

The 1997 Grand Prix of Luxembourg was held at the Nürburgring in Germany – a ruse to allow both Germany and Spain to have two Grands Prix – Spain also hosting the ‘European’ round.

It began well for McLaren with their two Mercedes cars leading ahead of the top brass from the German manufacturer. But it fell apart in the cruellest possible fashion when both David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen’s cars ground to a halt on the start/finish line within a lap of each other.

Depressing as the spectacle was for Ron Dennis, he didn’t know things were about to get much worse. The cars stopped near F1 Racing photographer Darren Heath, who had been waiting for just such an opportunity.

He snuck over to Hakkinen’s car, thrust his camera deep into the footwell, and clicked the shutter repeatedly.

Foot operated clutches have been a thing of the past in Formula 1 for many years, so a drivers footwell typically only features an accelerator and brake. But Turner was expecting to see a third pedal when he had his roll of film developed – and that’s exactly what he found.

F1 Racing splashed the photographs all over their November edition – McLaren’s independent rear brake pedal had been rumbled mere weeks after it had first been pressed into service. The team had used it one week before the Nürburgring, at the A1-Ring, where sharp-eyed onlookers wondered why their cars’ rear brakes were glowing on the exit of some corners.

The pedal allowed the drivers to operate either of the rear brakes independently of the others. This gave them two additional means of controlling the car and improving the performance – by reducing either understeer or wheelspin depending on which wheel was braked and when.

It was an ingenious system that in one respect didn’t add any new functionality to the car, merely a new way of operating its existing braking systems. Nonetheless Ron Dennis was furious to see it exposed after such a short time in service.

McLaren continued with the system in 1998 by which time they had leapt from front-of-midfielders to runaway championship leaders. Now their immediate rivals – chiefly Ferrari – protested the rear brake pedal on the grounds that it was primarily a steering system.

Although the system had previously been passed fit to race by Charlie Whiting the stewards at the Brazilian Grand Prix – the second round of 1998 – ruled against the rear brake pedal.

It was unsavoury to see a perfectly valid system banned on such a dubious technicality when it had been declared legal on other previous occasions. But it was not the first nor the last time that it happened.

It did not stop McLaren from running away with the Brazilian Grand Prix – or from winning both championships that year.

Related links

• Banned! archive

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Lotus’ began developing the idea before his death in the winter of 1982. Ten years later an active suspension car run by a different team finally carried a driver to the world championship.

After that, it was not long before the system was banned.

1981-88: Aborted

Active suspension has its roots in the row over ground effects and skirts in 1981 – and the controversial banning of the Lotus 88.

The teams were searching for means of running skirts down the sides of the cars to generate massive downforce as air passed underneath the car. An essential part of this was ensuring an even ride height – though that had particular value even for non-ground effect cars.

It also had road car applications, and to begin with Lotus developed an early active suspension system on an Esprit Turbo.

These early attempts at active suspension were more ‘reactive’ – using hydraulics to alter the car’s attitude in response to bumps in the road or particular inputs from the driver rather than actually preparing the car in advance for each specific change in the track. The first two iterations of the system (the second driven by Nigel Mansell occasionally in 1983) did not even use springs.

In the mid-1980s it proved extremely difficult to harness the potential of the system because the team lacked the capacity to adequately process the reams of data it produced. This was during the pioneering days of in-car electronics – much of which was concentrated on managing the efficiency of the thirsty turbo engines.

By 1987 Lotus had progressed far enough with the system to consider running it for a whole season. Ayrton Senna was tasked with assessing the active-ride 99T and gave it the thumbs-up.

The system presented the team with two significant drawbacks: First, it added 10-12kg to the car’s weight. Second, it drew power from the car’s engine to run the hydraulic pump.

These shortcomings, combined with other deficiencies in the chassis, meant the Lotus-Honda was far less competitive than the Williams that used the same engines. Mansell and Nelson Piquet in Williamses won the British Grand Prix by over a lap from Senna and team mate Satoru Nakajima.

The active system did pay Lotus back though – at the bumpy Detroit street circuit Senna gave the system its first Grand Prix win, which he followed up with a second at another street circuit, Monte-Carlo.

Williams, however, were developing a system of their own which was more limited in the scale of its ambitions than Lotus’s. It consumed less power (about 5bhp) and Piquet gave an active Williams its first win at Monza – after Senna had gone off.

The following year Lotus ditched the system but Williams persevered – having lost Honda power the team needed a competitive advantage. But active suspension wasn’t it and Mansell grew increasingly frustrated with the technology.

It culminated in the team performing a rush job to convert his car from active to conventional suspension on the eve of the British Grand Prix – before Mansell went out to score an excellent second place, equalling the team’s best result of the year. Active suspension was buried, for now.

1991-2: Refined

Such was the ferocious pace of computer technology development that by 1991 Williams were once again flirting with the technology. In the intervening period Mansell had gone to and returned from Ferrari, and his misgivings about the system persisted.

Late in the season the team produced a ‘B’ version of its FW14 chassis featuring refined and genuinely active – rather than reactive – suspension. Now the car’s attitude could be pre-programmed to anticipate changes in elevation and bumps. (Previously Lotus had conjured up the imaginative idea of using lasers or radar to ‘read’ the track ahead.)

Williams brought the FW14B to the final round of 1991 at Adelaide, but the foul weather prevented them from assessing its capabilities.

But in the off-season they found the car was so astonishingly fast they wouldn’t need to run the FW15 at the beginning of the season. As it turned out, the FW15 wasn’t even needed until the next year.

At the first round of the 1992 season Mansell took pole position from Senna, in a conventionally-suspended McLaren, by 0.741s. The Englishman won the race by 24s from team mate Riccardo Patrese, who was in turn a further 10s ahead of Senna. It set the pattern for the season.

At the bumpy Hermanos Rodriguez circuit in Mexico Mansell’s qualifying advantage over the next non-Williams was 0.946s. At Interlagos the gap was 2.199s. At Catalunya, 1.005s – Williams were on a different plane.

In front of his home crowd at Silverstone Mansell really wound it up and was on pole by 1.919s – from Patrese! Senna was 2.741s adrift and everyone else was at least three seconds slower.

The season was a Williams rout, and rival teams complained that the cost of researching and developing their own active suspension systems would be huge.

1993: Banned

For 1993 it was clear that active suspension was essential and almost every team had their own version of the technology. Williams, who had an all-new driver line-up of Alain Prost and Damon Hill, continued to dominate. Only the inspired Senna seriously disrupted Prostis success.

But the FIA were concerned by the rising cornering speeds and began to pressure the teams into accepting a ban on active suspension for 1994. To underline their seriousness at the Canadian Grand Prix they issued what would become a notorious statement.

Stewards bulletin number three, issued by Charlie Whiting, held that all cars with active suspension were in breach of the current regulations – never mind the future ones. He insisted that the hydraulic rams that formed part of the system were ‘moveable aerodynamic devices’, which had long been banned.

It caused uproar among the teams and media. There were fears the French Grand Prix would have to be cancelled while the teams built new passive cars from scratch, and Williams loudly complained that it could call their 1992 titles into question.

But President Max Mosley’s concerns about the safety of the systems was illustrated dramatically by a number of accidents.

At Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix Alessandro Zanardi was heading into the ultra-fast Eau Rouge section when a leak in his Lotus’s hydraulic system caused the bottom of the car to hit the track. The car went straight on into the barriers at enormous speed.

The paddock gravely feared that the worst fate had befallen the Italian – his team even had his car transported out of the country in case he died and a criminal investigation began. Astonishingly, he survived – but the terrifying consequences of active suspension failure were clear for all to see.

The system was banned for 1994. Although technology purists may lament its passing, it’s questionable whether the mechanics who actually worked on the systems cared for it all that much.

Former Benetton mechanic Steve Matchett makes several references in his books to his dislike of working with hydraulics that threatened to fire hot oil at you at a pressure of 2,500psi if a mechanic disconnected the wrong component at the wrong time.

Related links

• Banned! Lotus-Cosworth 88 & 88B
• Banned! archive

But this is not the first time that traction control has been banned – last time it happened all kinds of problems arose, not least of which safety, policing and politics.

Can a ban be made to work this time?

A popular anecdote about the latter stages of Ayrton Senna’s career concerns the Christmas card he sent to Max Mosley in 1992, in which he implored the FIA President to ban driver aids.

Of course, Senna was not acting out of any high moral purpose to preserve the integrity of motor racing – although it is likely that he believed his own talents would be compromised by electronics that allowed the less skilful to elicit traction from a car as well as he did.

Senna wanted traction aids and the likes of active suspension and forthcoming innovations such as anti-lock brakes banning because rivals Williams had perfected them, and his team McLaren had not.

Nevertheless they were eventually banned, one year later, by which time Senna was on his way to Williams. The impact the banning of traction control had was complicated, and not at all as straightforward as simply ‘improving the racing’ as many expected.

Indeed, many believe it played a role on that fateful day in Imola when Senna was killed. The Benetton-Ford of Michael Schumacher that had beaten Senna in the first two rounds contained a traction control function that had not been purged from its systems and instead lay, conspiratorially enough, behind a blank menu labelled ‘option 13′.

Benetton were not the only ones to face accusations of cheating. When Nicola Larini substituted for Jean Alesi early in the season the press went into a frenzy after he made a remark about switching off the car’s traction control system.

The controversies were shortly eclipsed by tragedies that overwhelmed the 1994 season. But concerns that the governing body were unable to police the ban, and questions about whether the absence of traction control had made the cars more dangerous, remained.

As the millennium passed the terms of the debate changed. Mosley shocked the F1 world when he insisted that at least one team had flouted the traction control ban – but refused to name them. What he did do, however, was re-legalise traction control from the 2001 Spanish Grand Prix, on the grounds that the FIA could no longer police it.

This was a doubly unsatisfactory move. Not only did it compromise any claim F1 had to being a true test of driver skill, it also undermined confidence in the policing power of the governing body.

Since 1994, a new political force had made its presence felt in Formula 1. Major car manufacturers including Mercedes, BMW, Ford (until 2004), Renault, Honda and Toyota now had a stake in the sport’s decision making process, and defended traction controls on the grounds that it was an example of an F1 technology with relevance for ordinary drivers.

What’s more, an effective ban on traction control would require the consent of the manufacturers to employ a standard electronic control unit for their engines – something else that was met with stiff opposition.

Public pressure does seem to have played some part in the reinstatement of the traction control ban. In the FIA’s 2006 survey of F1 fans, 64% demanded a greater emphasis on driver skill over electronic aids – not an emphatic endorsement, but it might have received a stronger response had the issue focussed on traction control.

For – and this is the crucial point about the traction control ban – it is not simply about what it is done, but about what is seen to be done.

Like it or not, for the average fan the closest point of reference to driving an F1 car is driving their own cars. And they know that, on their own cars, traction control is something that saves drivers in the event that they make mistakes. Traction control in F1 does much the same, and so it follows that if F1 is to be seen as a test of driver skill, traction control simply has to go.

The FIA got the teams to agree to the bans by offering them concessions – namely, by allowing them to make more technical developments on their engines than was previously allowed under the terms of the engine freeze.

But what, if any, impact will the traction control ban have next year?

Can it be adequately policed now that standardised ECUs have been imposed? Will it improve the quality of racing or, as many expect, do we need to see a wholesale reduction in aerodynamic downforce to achieve that?

And will the whole issue be undermined if the manufacturers are allowed to employ one of their most prized new technologies – stability control – to once again reduce the challenge of piloting an F1 car?

Related links

• Debate: Traction control gone – what’s next?
• Traction control banned in F1 from 2008

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This was in 1997, at which point the team was in its death throes – the last year in which boss Ken Tyrrell was still at the helm.

The perennially cash-strapped team were as light on funds as ever, and were on the brink of being sold to British American Racing to ultimately form the Honda team we know today.

Yet even in that late stage of the Tyrrell team’s life designer Harvey Postlethwaite still showed great ingenuity in the face of adversity. Precisely what you’d expect from the team that gave the world the six-wheeled F1 car.

The X-wings – or ‘pylons’ – were born of a desperate need to instil more grip in a car that was fundamentally short of both horsepower and downforce. The F1 regulations prohibited downforce-generating wings in various key areas of the car, but at the time the space above and to the side of the driver’s head was fair game.

The basic building blocks of an F1 car is carbon fibre – not a cheap material. But the team had plenty of old wings knocking around from which they were able to make crude uprights and mini-wings to fix onto the sidepods of the car, to generate more downforce.

Hey presto – the X-wings were born. Who says F1 and recycling can’t go hand in hand?

They were, of course, grotesquely ugly. Even so by 1998 other teams were using them, particularly at high-downforce circuits such as Buenos Aires.

One team, Prost, found they couldn’t run the wings on both sides because it inhibited access to the refuelling flap – so they ran one on one side on clockwise tracks, and one on the other side on anti-clockwise tracks.

By the San Marino round even Ferrari were using them. McLaren’s Adrian Newey would have nothing of it, of course. And nor would the FIA who subsequently banned them for being ‘unsafe’.

To be fair to them, a Sauber had lost one wing during a pit stop when it was torn off by an air line. But would anyone really have objected if they’d axed them on grounds of taste and decency?

Related links

• Banned! archive

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But who can say those flaws might not have been rectified in the laboratory of high-tech car development that is Formula One?

For one example of an F1 engine technology that was dismissed at first, went through a difficult gestation, and then became ubiquitous, look no further than the turbo engines that defined F1 racing in the 1980s.

In May 1977 Renault revealed its first ever Formula One car, the RS01. It boasted two distinctive innovations: One was its radial tyres developed with Michelin. The other was its engine – a 1,492cc turbo unit, the first of its kind in Formula 1.

The single car outfit made an inauspicious Grand Prix debut in Britain that year. Jean Pierre Jabouille qualified the car 21st on the flat-out sweeps of Silverstone, a circuit virtually tailor made for turbos. After just 12 laps its inlet manifold cracked, and once that was repaired it managed another five before the turbo broke.

Few outside Renault were convinced of the potential of the ‘Yellow Teapot’. But the French team persevered. It took them two years to win a Grand Prix, at Dijon in France in 1979. But if the promise of turbocharging was becoming apparent to them, Renault’s rivals were beginning to realise it would take a long time to catch up.

Ferrari were the next team to jump on the turbo bandwagon – their first turbo car arriving in 1981. Gilles Villeneuve somehow hustled the ungainly beast to two highly unlikely victories at the twisty Monte-Carlo and Jarama circuits.

The chief problems with the turbo engines were chronic unreliability, which typically manifested itself in explosive, fiery fashion, and throttle lag.

At first the delay between the throttle being opened and the turbo spinning up meant a huge burst of power arrived whole seconds after the driver depressed the accelerator – not what you needed at Monte-Carlo on a damp track.

Every team found it had to go through this difficult development period and it thrust the British chassis constructors in the direction of major car manufacturers. Brabham teamed up with BMW, Williams with Honda, McLaren with Porsche. A sport that just a few years ago had largely been the Cosworth brigade versus Ferrari now boasted the names of many top car builders.

Ironically Renault failed to be the first team to win a championship with a turbo engine. In 1982, their fifth full season, they had still not ironed out the car’s mechanical gremlins and several DNFs too many stopped Alain Prost from being champion.

He came even closer the next year, but by then the British had caught up and, aided by some imaginative fuel, Prost was beaten by Nelson Piquet’s Brabham-BMW.

By that season – 1983 – the writing was writ large on the wall. The British teams, which only the previous season had resorted to flagrant rule-bending to bring their Cosworth-powered cars on terms with the turbos, had now dropped their DFV powerplants for turbo power.

A notable exception was Ken Tyrrell, who didn’t get his hands on a turbo until 1985 (and even then not for very long).

The 1983 season also saw the final win for a normally aspirated engine in a race against turbos, when Michele Alboreto won at Detroit in his Tyrrell.

Engine horsepower outputs skyrocketed in the mid-80s. Rumours of one-lap wonder qualifying engines capable of 1,400 bhp – nicknamed ‘grenades’ – were not that far wide of the mark. The FIA searched desperately for a means of containing speeds and began by reducing the volume of fuel each car was allowed.

This brought howls of protest that races would be reduced to ‘economy runs’. And at first it did result in the unedifying spectacle of drivers running out of fuel within sight of the flag – the computer technology used to monitor fuel consumption being in its infancy.

Perhaps worst of all was the 1985 San Marino Grand Prix, when leader Stefan Johansson ran out of fuel within a few laps of the flag. So did Piquet and Ayrton Senna. Prost crossed the line to win – but had so little fuel left his car was disqualified for being underweight. The ‘victory’ went to Elio de Angelis’ Lotus…

The teams grappled with the rules as the FIA tightened the leash further. Fuel allowances were cut and maximum boost levels limited with pop-off valves. Each year brought new claims that an ‘equivalence formula’ could be found to allow the normally aspirated cars to compete. And each year the turbos won every race.

In 1987 it drove the governing body to set up separate championships for non-turbo runners. Unsurprisingly they were dominated by Tyrrell who won the constructors’ title (The Colin Chapman Cup) and driver Jonathan Palmer took the drivers’ (The Jim Clark Cup). The championships, largely forgotten by the history books, were dropped after one year.

This came as the FIA finally acted to draw the turbo era to a close – it would be normally-aspirated engines only from 1989.

The 1988 season saw McLaren-Honda win all but one race in a fearsome display of technical superiority and reliability. Those were not the words with which one might have accurately described turbos during their infancy, but that’s what a decade of development by top F1 teams can achieve.

F1′s turbo era is remembered for its spectacle – the ultra-high performance qualifying engines and flame-spitting exhausts. Faced with such an excess of power the teams could run steeper wing angles which not only gave the cars more grip in the corners, but created more drag and facilitated overtaking.

Outside of Formula One turbos still remain in some top racing series such as Champ Cars. And it has been suggested that, in F1′s search for an environmentally friendly formula for the future, compact turbocharged and supercharged engines might one day be an answer.

Watch this space…

Related links

• Banned! Gas turbine engines
• F1′s new engines: 1-litre turbos?
• Banned! archive

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The FIA made clear early in 1993 that ‘driver aids’ would be banned for 1994. A range of technologies were included in that all-encompassing phrase including one not yet in use – four-wheel steering.

Although front-and-rear-wheel steering appeared on road cars such as the Honda Legend and Mitsubishi 3000 GTO, it would never be raced in Formula 1. But late in 1993, despite knowing it would be illegal in a matter of weeks, Benetton gave the system a go anyway – and came damn close to racing it.

Following his second Grand Prix win in Estoril, Portugal in 1993, Michael Schumacher stayed on at the circuit with the Benetton team to test a new ‘C’ version of the Cosworth-powered B193.

The major addition to this car was a hydraulically operated rear steering rack, which Moog electro-valves able to alter the steering angle of the rear wheels by two degree in either direction.

In an attempt to minimise any safety implications the hydraulics were designed to go into a preset ‘fail safe’ position in the event of failure, pointing the wheels straight.

The system was also designed to be turned off and on at will, allowing the driver to run the car with a conventional front wheel steer set up if he preferred.

And in the event that was exactly what drivers Schumacher and Riccardo Patrese did prefer, finding the four wheel steer set up added nothing to the car in terms of laptime. But it did, as far as Patrese was concerned, produce an unusual handling sensation.

The lap times testified that if the system added any to the car’s performance, it wasn’t very much. Schumacher said:

It feels very good, but actually it doesn’t change things a lot. I am using the same lines and there isn’t a lot of movement at the rear. It makes it a little easier, but right now the system doesn’t work very well in the slow corners, so we might not use it in Adelaide.

They didn’t use it in Adelaide or Suzuka. Schumacher ran it in testing on Friday morning at Suzuka, and then turned the system off.

But Benetton’s failure to find any advantage with the system didn’t change the FIA’s decision to ban it.

Perhaps, though, this is one instance where the intervention of the rule book didn’t play the ultimate role in stopping a piece of technology being used. Maybe it just wasn’t a big enough step forward?

Related links

• Banned! archive

Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport

No other major open wheel racing series uses them – not the Champ Car World Series, Indy Racing League, GP2, World Series by Renault, A1 Grand Prix – none of them.

In F1, of course, slick tyres have been banned for nearly a decade. Might we soon see their return?

The development and introduction of different tyre technologies is difficult to trace across the motor racing spectrum, including Formula 1.

One thing can be said with certainty – slick tyres originated in the world of drag racing in American in the 1950s. Dragster drivers noticed their treaded tyres became quicker when the grooves wore away, and this soon led to the development of dedicated racing slicks.

Attuning the idea to the tougher demands of circuit racing, with the challenges of corners and far greater distances chief among the problems, took some time. It was not until the early 1970s that slick tyres became a part of Formula 1.

That too had an American influence as the Goodyear and Firestone brands had out-spent Dunlop, squeezing them out of Formula 1. Firestone brought slicks for its teams to use at the 1971 Spanish Grand Prix at the Montjuich Park street circuit. They quickly became de rigeur for dry-weather racing.

The arrival of slicks followed several years of the tread patterns on Formula 1 tyres becoming increasingly fainter and more spread apart – it was almost an evolutionary process.

The same cannot be said for the manner in which slick tyres fell out of use in Formula 1 – that was a swift, decisive blow by the sport’s governing body with the specific intention of reducing cornering speeds.

FIA President Max Mosley had taken many great steps to reduce car performance in the wake of the tragedies of 1994. But when Bridgestone entered F1 in 1997 and a new tyre war began lap times were slashed as cornering speeds went through the roof.

Desperate to contain the escalating speeds Mosley devised new regulations for 1998. Chief among which was inhibiting tyre performance by putting three grooves in the front tyres and four in the rears.

This succeeded in containing speeds in two ways:

First, the tyres indeed proved slower. However, developments in other areas meant that Mika Hakkinen’s pole position time at the opening race at Melbourne in 1998 was only 0.7s slower than Jacques Villeneuve’s had been twelve months earlier on slicks. Nonetheless, without grooves, Hakkinen’s time would have been whole seconds quicker.

Second, it ended the tyre war, as Goodyear left F1 after 1998, unhappy with the grooved tyre regulations. They were not the only ones – reigning champions Villeneuve was just one of many critics of the tyres, although he was surely the most vehement.

Groove tyres ultimately proved to be a limited means of controlling cornering speeds.

Following 1998 an additional groove was added to the front tyres to further cut speeds. Then in 2005 the FIA moved to end the new tyre war between Michelin and Bridgestone, by insisting on a single tyre supplier.

As that tyre supplier can now restrict tyre performance at the FIA’s behest if need be, it has led to hopeful speculation that the unattractive and unbecoming grooved tyres might yet be cast out of the sport.

Here’s hoping…

Related links

• Banned! Gas turbine engines
• Banned! Six-wheelers
• Banned! Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT46B ‘Fan Car’
• Banned! Rocket fuel
• Banned! Beryllium
• Banned! Lotus-Cosworth 88 & 88B
• Banned! Flexi-wings

Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport

The Lotus boss, who died 25 years ago, understood that innovation was not just positive for its own sake, but that it also had publicity value.

His gas turbine powered 56B F1 car was plainly a case of the latter over the former. The technical obstacles proved insurmountable and the idea was eventually dropped.

First of all for any non-technical people let’s get the obligatory science bit out of the way.

In an ordinary combustion engine, the explosive burning of petrol is used to push a number of pistons up and down, which turns a crankshaft which is eventually connected to the car’s wheels.

Gas turbine engines also used combustion – but their construction is very different. In a turbine engine, the gases produced in combustion pass over the blade of a turbine, spinning it, which drives the car.

This is turbine power at its most basic – turbines also use the gases to maximise power output in other ways. But what we’re really interested in here is how they were used in F1 cars.

The idea of using turbines in a racing environment was actually imported from America. In 1966 a car dubbed the Jack Adam Aircraft Special was fitted with a 1,350hp General Electric T58 turbine for the Indianapolis 500.

The car’s acceleration was enormous, but the combination of the hugely powerful engine with a five year-old chassis and poor brakes proved un-driveable. Racer Bill Cheesebourg ran the car in pre-qualifying but wisely elected not to qualify it.

The United States Automobile Club acted quickly to restrict turbine power to prevent a similarly dangerous entry in the future. In 1967 Andy Granatelli’s turbine powered car led much of the race before dropping back in the late stages with gearbox failure.

Nonetheless Chapman and Granatelli together planned a turbine entry for 1968 the four-wheel drive Lotus 56 chassis and Pratt & Whitney STB-62 gas turbine engines. Jim Clark and Graham Hill would drive the entries, with a third run by oil supplier STP for Greg Ward.

A cruel blow of fatalities struck Lotus at this time. First Clark was killed in a Formula 2 race at the Hockenheimring in April. Then at Indianapolis his replacement Mike Spence was killed driving one of the turbine cars when he ran wide on one of the turns.

None of the three entries finished the race – Hill’s suspension broke and STP’s two entries – now driven by Joe Leonard and Art Pollard – both retired after fuel pumps that had been changed at Pratt & Whitney’s behest both failed.

Chapman either retained some faith in turbine power, or recognised its publicity value, or both. Whatever, he began talks with Pratt & Whitney to develop the engine for Formula 1.

Turbines were even less well-suited to F1 than Indianapolis. The fast, wide Indy oval allowed the drivers to keep the turbine engine running constant high revs, as it was designed to. But the twists of F1 road courses demanded the kind of flexible power delivery gas turbines couldn’t supply.

Nonetheless a 56 chassis was customised into a 56B to accept the engine. Chapman originally hoped to run the car at Monza in 1970, but did not want to jeopardise Jochen Rindt’s title bid. He took the normal car instead and, as misfortune would have it, Rindt died in a crash in qualifying, yet still won the title posthumously.

The turbine car had many shortcomings. Lag in power delivery was massive – although Pratt & Whitney’s technicians managed to halve the delay using lighter components it was still up to three seconds.

The phenomenon also occurred in reverse – when a driver backed off the throttle the engine still delivered maximum power, meaning it had to be manhandled to a halt (it had no gearbox) using enormous brakes that wore out quickly.

The engine was fuel thirsty to begin with and the efforts to reduce lag only made it even less efficient.

It did, however, have certain advantages that even today would make the engine worth considering if it were allowed by the rules. The units had great longevity – the Pratt & Whitney engines needed replacing every 1,000 hours – or 500 Grand Prix distances. Makes today’s two-race engines seem rather delicate, doesn’t it?

It was also very light and compact compared with standard engines of the time.

The car made several appearances in 1971, making its debut at the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in March. Emerson Fittipaldi retired the car after its persisting bottoming on the bumpy track broke the right rear suspension. It also retired from its second outing with Reine Wisell at the wheel.

Fittipaldi drove again at the International Trophy race at Silverstone where the car was fitted with larger brakes. He retired from the first heat but finished third in the second after several top drivers had retired.

Dave Walker drove it at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort but crashed out on lap six. The strange characteristics of the cars peculiar power delivery and enormous braking demands could easily catch out a driver.

Wisell drove once more in the British Grand Prix and finished, albeit 11 laps adrift and unclassified. Fittipaldi made a heroic effort at Monza to finish eighth, one lap down, with two cracked brake discs.

Curiously the car also started a Formula 5000 race and finished second in both heats.

The enormous shortcomings of the car clearly contributed to its retirement at the end of 1971.

Perhaps Lotus could have persevered with it, as Renault did with turbo power from 1977. But it is more likely that, faced with more limited resources than a major car manufacturer, the team found results came more easily with the more conventionally progressive 72D, which carried Fittipaldi to the 1972 championship.

Under the strict engine rules of today, turbine engines are inadmissible. But it’s fascinating to wonder whether sustained development by a top F1 team could ever have made them a realistic proposition, as turbos were.

Related links

• Banned! Six-wheelers
• Banned! Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT46B ‘Fan Car’
• Banned! Rocket fuel
• Banned! Beryllium
• Banned! Lotus-Cosworth 88 & 88B
• Banned! Flexi-wings

Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport