except maybe Silverstone and Spa when they were wet I believeIn 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.
I think the track was a real challenge but the accident pretty much meant they no longer held the race there on safety groundsIn 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.
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.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.
Piquet 's other offer was Mclaren with Honda engines but Prost gave Dennis the nod for Senna out of the two options.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
Here's that test an the feedback from JYS is fascinating.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.
Senna the film paid great respects to what was happening to him leading up to ImolaA terrible weekend for F1.