On this day/old race discussions

[FB]

In Nelson's defence, the Lotus 100 T was an absolute dog and I suspect even the god like abilities of Ayrton Senna (sic) would not have made it a race winner.

 

[FB]

In 1975 Jochen Mass won the Spanish GP at Montjuich Park, a race more famous for Rolf Stommelen losing his rear wing, crashing over a barrier and killing 5 people. 18 cars crashed out before the organisers thought it appropriate to stop the race.

 

[Dartman]

Ah yes, the modified helicopter rotor blades mounted on stalks over the rear wheels, very suck it and see

 

[Il_leone]

In Nelson's defence, the Lotus 100 T was an absolute dog and I suspect even the god like abilities of Ayrton Senna (sic) would not have made it a race winner.

except maybe Silverstone and Spa when they were wet I believe

Difference between Senna and Piquet is the former probably would have made Lotus look like a front runner whilst the latter was exposed for what he really was a driver who's reputation was built on having superior equipment and first real teammate who challenged him he got all sulky

 

[Il_leone]

In 1975 Jochen Mass won the Spanish GP at Montjuich Park, a race more famous for Rolf Stommelen losing his rear wing, crashing over a barrier and killing 5 people. 18 cars crashed out before the organisers thought it appropriate to stop the race.

I think the track was a real challenge but the accident pretty much meant they no longer held the race there on safety grounds

 

[cider_and_toast]

In Nelson's defence, the Lotus 100 T was an absolute dog and I suspect even the god like abilities of Ayrton Senna (sic) would not have made it a race winner.

The mostly excellent "Lotus - The complete competition cars" attributes the blame for the 100T's absolute dogness to misleading wind tunnel data. It fails to mention the fact that the chassis was as rigid as a badly made cheese cake.

For a car that had the same engine in the back as the McLaren it really was awful.

Piquet was a race winner before and after his experience with Lotus so you definitely can't say it was about the driver. I've no idea what other offers he had on the table but if the quality of the 100T came as a surprise I can well imagine his thoughts on the even worse Lotus 101

 

[FB]

Apparently JYS took the 100T out for a few laps and was less than polite about its performance. This was a man who hadn't driven an F1 car seriously for over 15 years. The 101 didn't even have the compensation of Honda turbo power.

 

[FB]

Niki Lauda won the Spanish GP on this day in 1974. His first win and the 50th for Ferrari.

 

[Il_leone]

The mostly excellent "Lotus - The complete competition cars" attributes the blame for the 100T's absolute dogness to misleading wind tunnel data. It fails to mention the fact that the chassis was as rigid as a badly made cheese cake.

For a car that had the same engine in the back as the McLaren it really was awful.

Piquet was a race winner before and after his experience with Lotus so you definitely can't say it was about the driver. I've no idea what other offers he had on the table but if the quality of the 100T came as a surprise I can well imagine his thoughts on the even worse Lotus 101

Piquet 's other offer was Mclaren with Honda engines but Prost gave Dennis the nod for Senna out of the two options.

Piquet was not a bad driver but not as good as he believed he was. The fact him and Honda thought he was the best there was went rapidly south given all that sulking Honda quickly turned their affections for Senna and made Piquet even more sulky and an a$$hole

 

[F1Brits_90]

on this day a extreme rarity, a memorable spanish GP & there not many of them maybe 4 in its 30 year history. i remember this race so well & having such heartbreak for Mika, & it was 1 of his best drives as he was up against the dominant ferrari which in 2001 won the title with almost double the pts of 2nd & when it saw the chequered flag was only off the podium once & hakkinen was going to beat him by 35 secs & lapped everyone but schumacher

what turned out to be his final season. it was going to be his 1st win & podium after DNF 6th DNF 4th in opening 4 races & then this was the start of 3 consecutive car failures. would have to wait til canada for his 1st podium & silverstone for his 1st win

 

[cider_and_toast]

Apparently JYS took the 100T out for a few laps and was less than polite about its performance. This was a man who hadn't driven an F1 car seriously for over 15 years. The 101 didn't even have the compensation of Honda turbo power.

Here's that test an the feedback from JYS is fascinating.

 

[FB]

In the article I read Peter Warr wasn't best pleased with his comments.

 

[cider_and_toast]

I found two other reviews through the Lotus one. He does an 88 March and Benetton.

Cockpit comfort is a recurring theme.

He loves the Benetton though.

 

[Johnny Carwash]

It’s almost hard to believe that 28 years ago today, the great Ayrton Senna passed away.

 

[cider_and_toast]

A terrible weekend for F1.

 

[Il_leone]

A terrible weekend for F1.

Senna the film paid great respects to what was happening to him leading up to Imola

 

[F1Brits_90]

its such a sad weekend, in a way its incredible it took 2 deaths & 1 very lucky escape to bring safety up in F1 & they had a chance to walk away from accidents. im surprised they raced on but then again they raced in 2014 after bianchi. but i guess they knew something we dont as no champagne was sprayed & schumacher in the press conference had a black hat

but it is crazy when you think of if senna had pulled out of that race or survived. the F1 world would be unrecognisable. Schumacher 3-4 world titles, Coulthard nowhere, Senna at Ferrari. but also we could have this just in the future races 1995 1996 1997 as F1 was extremely dangerous then

 

[cider_and_toast]

F1 has always been dangerous but what made the 1994 cars more dangerous by far was the ludicrous decision to remove all driver aids but do nothing about the speed or design of the chassis.

Modern fighter jets are dynamically unstable which means they need computers to support the pilots decision making in order to stay in the air. With that dynamic instability however they are far quicker and better handling.

What F1 did at the start of the 94 season was remove the computers but do nothing about the instability.

 

[Dartman]

I really don't think the FIA understood the technicalities of stability of cars in 1994 and whether the designers knew much more, they would have received drivers reports but probably put it down to set up

 

[Il_leone]

It was the turnaround to move driver aids I think it was agreed only in Canada 1993 so basically teams had 6 months or less to come up with the same cars without the driver aids