Lotus 81

Lotus 81

Constructor:	lotus
Designer:	Colin Chapman Peter Wright Martin Ogilvie
Predecessor:	Lotus 80
Successor:	Lotus 87
Technical specifications
Chassis:	Aluminum alloy monocoque
Wheelbase:	2773 mm
Weight:	575 kg
Tires:	Goodyear
Petrol:	Essex
statistics
Driver:	Mario Andretti Elio de Angelis Nigel Mansell
First start:	1980 Argentine Grand Prix
Last start:	1980 U.S. Grand Prix
Starts Victories Poles SR 30th - - -
World Cup points:	15th
Podiums:	1
Leadership laps:	-

The Lotus 81 was a Formula 1 racing car from the British racing team Lotus , which was used in the 1980 Formula 1 season .

Technical specifications

Lotus 81

At the end of 1978 team boss Colin Chapman came to the conclusion that he had exhausted the technical potential of the Lotus 79 . So he began to design a new car, which was named Lotus 80 . However, the vehicle turned out to be non-competitive due to structural defects. For his new racing car, he combined the chassis of the Lotus 80 with components from the Lotus 79. The prototype was named Lotus 79X . The result was the Lotus 81, a rather conservative ground-effect vehicle, which from the start was only intended as a temporary solution until the Lotus 88 was completed.

Compared to the Lotus 80, the new racing car had a significantly reinforced chassis, which inevitably led to an increase in the overall weight and thus poor driving behavior. The top speed on the straights was also unsatisfactory. The monocoque itself was made of an aluminum alloy and the cockpit was kept narrower. Further visual changes compared to the predecessor vehicle were a shortened vehicle front and redesigned side pods. Another problem with the vehicle was that the rear tires developed little grip, which was eventually remedied by changing the suspension on the rear axle.

The Lotus 81 was powered by a Ford-Cosworth DFV. The water-cooled, non-supercharged eight-cylinder V-engine with a 90 ° bank angle and a displacement of 2993 cm³ developed around 470 hp (345 kW) at a speed of around 11,100 rpm. The manually shifted, longitudinally installed Lotus / Hewland gearbox had five forward gears and one reverse gear. The vehicle's tank held 175 liters. All wheels were individually suspended from double wishbones . The shock absorbers were obtained from Koni .

Lotus 81B

The Lotus 81B differed only insignificantly from the predecessor vehicle, especially in its wheelbase of now 2819 mm. The track width was 1803 mm at the front and 1676 mm at the rear. The vehicle weighed 588 kg and the Ford-Cosworth engine developed around 490 hp (360 kW) with unchanged displacement.

sponsor

The main sponsors of the team were the oil company Essex - hence the blue-red paintwork - and the Swiss watch manufacturer Tissot .

Season course

1980

The young Italian Elio de Angelis joined Mario Andretti in 1980 after Carlos Reutemann had left Lotus after just one year. De Angelis achieved the best race result of the 81 when he finished second in the Brazilian Grand Prix earlier in the season . The future world champion Nigel Mansell made his Formula 1 debut at the Austrian Grand Prix in 81. At the end of the season, de Angelis was seventh in the world championship. Andretti only achieved a single point and moved to Alfa Romeo at the end of the year .

driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	Points	rank
1980 Formula 1 season																15th	5.
M. Andretti	11	DNF	DNF	12	DNF	DNF	7th	DNF	DNF	7th	DNF	8th	DNF	DNF	6th
E. de Angelis	12	DNF	2	DNF	DNF	10	9	DNF	DNF	16	6th	DNF	4th	10	4th
N. Mansell	43										DNF	DNF

1981

After the Lotus 88 was banned, Chapman's team had to contest the start of the 1981 Formula 1 season with the Lotus 81B before it could be replaced by the Lotus 87 from Monaco . Mansell achieved a podium finish in a World Championship run for the first time in his career at the Belgian Grand Prix with the Lotus 81.

driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	Points	rank
1981 Formula 1 season																	22nd	7th
E. de Angelis	11	DNF	5	6th		5
N. Mansell	12	DNF	11	DNF		3

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

literature

• Jean-François Krause: Vehicle data sheet : Lotus 81-Ford V8. Again faulty. In: The large Formula 1 archive , Weltbild Verlag Augsburg, o. P.
• Anthony Pritchard: Lotus: The Competition Cars-All the Racing Type Numbers from 1947 to the Modern Era , Haynes Publishing Sparkford 2006, ISBN 978-1-84425-006-6 , pp. 174 f., 254.
• Ulrich Schwab: Grand Prix. The races for the 1980 automobile world championship , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 978-3-87943-751-1 , pp. 36-38.
• Ulrich Schwab: Grand Prix. The races for the Automobile World Championship 1981. , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 978-3-87943-821-1 , pp. 26-28.

Web links

Commons : Lotus 81  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Image: Elio de Angelis in the Lotus 81