The COAT - SF - Lotus 25 vs Williams FW14

[crmalcolm]

The second semi-final sees the Lotus 25 take on the Williams FW14.

The Lotus took a quarter-final win 4-0 over the McLaren MP4/2, whilst the Williams defeated the Ferrari F2004 7-1.

Lotus 25 (grandprixhistory.org):
In 1961 the engine capacity for Formula 1 was reduced to 1.5 liters. Engines also need to run on 101.5 octane fuel instead of the 130 octane Avgas. The first year of the new regulations found all of the British teams down on power compared to Ferrari with the expected results. For 1962 Lotus would answer with the Lotus 25. Mid-engined cars were now standard and the Lotus 25 was not the first racing car with a monocoque chassis but its artistic simplicity and immense success in the hands of Jimmy Clark revolutionized Grand Prix racing car design. Monocoque construction had been used in aeronautical engineering for over 50 years. In 1915 Harry Blood campaigned a metal-fuselaged Carnelian at Indianapolis. Gabriel Voisin used a monocoque chassis for his car that he raced in the 1923 French GP and in 1955 BRM incorporated a semi-monocoque chassis in their Grand Prix cars.

Colin Chapman had experimented with a backbone chassis for the Lotus Elan sports car. He decided to apply the same techniques to a single-seater racing car. By using box-sections he created a tub just wide enough for a driver and within the box-section would go rubber bags to hold the fuel. While this was going on there was also a Type 24 being developed using a spaceframe just in case. As part of the design the drive would now sit in an almost reclining position that took some use to, and it took a brave man indeed to drive one of these cars at full speed. The main benefits of this design were increased torsional rigidity for lees weight and with a smaller frontal area. The resulting stiffness allowed Lotus to use more supple suspension which offered great advantages in slower, tighter turns. Colin Chapman was known as an instinctive seat of the pants designer. In fact when the first prototype was being built he took the opportunity of sitting in the car. To his surprise he found that he could fit quite comfortably and announced forthright that: "This cockpit's too wide ... take another inch and a half out out of it!" Dick Scammell, one of the mechanics that built the first car would later remark that: "None of us really knew what we were doing, but it all took shape very nicely and it certainly looked right."

Power was again provided by Coventry-Climax, the British forklift, fire pump, racing, and other speciality engine manufacturer. At £3000 per motor they hoped that Ferrari's engine advantage would be bridged. The car was fast straight out of the box and with Clark driving, when it finished it usually won. In 1963, Engineer Len Terry was coaxed in to returning to the team that had fired him in 1959. One of his duties was to improve the car's reliability. His work bore fruit when Scotsman Jim Clark after finishing 8th in Monaco won the next four races in a row. Clark would go on to win a then record seven out of ten races and his first World Championship. Graham Hill and Richie Ginther finished 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Williams FW14(B) (goodwood.com):
When the Williams FW14 arrived on the scene it was a technological marvel, so far advanced of most of its competition it was hardly funny. Teething issues meant that it was never really in with a chance of winning the title that year, but Adrian Newey’s first iconic F1 design would still win seven races that season on its way to second in the championship. In fact, people forget that in that first season Nigel Mansell won only two races fewer than eventual champion Ayrton Senna, and his lack of real title contention was mostly down to the early season struggles that saw the FW14 retire six times in four races.

For 1992 work was done to the troublesome semi-automatic gearbox (which had been new to Williams for the first season of the FW14). New traction control systems and tweaked active suspension made this ‘B’ spec car an even more monstrous machine. To the naked eye the only real difference is a couple of protrusions by the front suspension pushrods, which contain some of the active suspension components.

Furnished with this new FW14B there was no stopping Mansell, who had been waiting for another opportunity to fight for the championship for so long that he’d already retired from F1 once. Mansell won the first five races in a row, a feat still to be beaten, and went on to win a record (at the time) nine races in the season. It also qualified on pole for all but one race in 1992 and added another 11 fastest laps.

[S griffin]

For me the FW14, as I've said before it became the most dominant car in F1 ever