Poll Most Dominant F1 Car

[Il_leone]

Part of the reason Honda left Williams was they joined forces with Williams with the agreement they were going to sign Nelson Piquet which they did and expect him to win multiple titles... what had not been expected off course was Nigel Mansell suddenly becoming a front runner and Piquet starting to feel threatened and making his infamous quote that he had to race Mansell rather than be No 1 by right

Honda off course were not happy that Williams threw away the title in 1986 and they had already been discussing with Mclaren about a deal for 1988 not long after that.

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Going back to the question 1988 was a transition year where all the teams were moving to non turbos for 1989 and only Honda and Ferrari who threatened to quit if turbos were not allowed for 1988 had turbos. It was the most dominating season by one team until it was broken in 2002 by Ferrari

For 2003 they had to change the regulations to prevent Schumacher and Ferrari dominating speaks volumes what everyone thought about 2002

So that is my choice for most dominant which had a combination of a reliable engine, bespoke tyres, the best driver plus the best pit crew and unlimited testing to be the main team

 

[FB]

The 1988 McLaren, or should I say the Honda turbo, had a system to overcome the pop off valve on the turbo so they could vary the boost. They varied the temperature of the air going in to the turbo to increase or decrease power, Ferrari didn't even come close on the engineering front that season.

 

[Incubus]

Another thing as well about the 1988 season was the unpredicted dominance of the turbos over the normally-aspirated-engines. Before the season peope were expecting the latter to be much more of a match for the-now "castrated" turbo engines with their maximum boost regulation-limited to 2.5 BAR and fuel tank capacity reduced to 150 litres.

When the season kicked off it was seen as a surprise that the turbos were still dominant despite producing so much less horsepower than they had over the previous few years.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Apart from the Benettons runnning the virtually all new Ford DFR engine, everyone else was using either a revised Cosworth DFV in the shape of the DFZ or the JUDD CV engine which was an uprated version of their BV Formula 3000 engine.

Neither of those were ever going to touch the turbos

 

[Il_leone]

Honda managed to find another 20bhp over the winter and after initial trouble testing they got their car right at the last test before the season opener and it was only going to be one team dominating the season

Ferrari thinking they mastered turbos had trouble getting the turbos working full race as it was very fuel thirsty

Benetton - they could have been the surprise package as they had a partnership with Ford and it was anticipated that there was a possibility of a V12 engine but instead they opted for a V8
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