Lotus 100T – 1988
Nelson Piquet
Lotus entered 1988 with the heavy legacy of a decade of decline. Since the death of Colin Chapman in December 1982, the team had been trying to find its way back, but the truth is it hadn’t won a constructors’ championship since 1978. The 1987 season had brought three victories—two for Ayrton Senna and one for Satoru Nakajima—but the Brazilian’s talent was not enough to disguise the limitations of a Lotus 99T which, although innovative in its active suspension, was unreliable. And Senna left for McLaren at the end of that year. To replace him, Lotus secured the signing of Nelson Piquet, three-time world champion (1981, 1983, and 1987), who swapped Williams-Honda for Colin Chapman’s team. The irony was palpable: Piquet arrived at Lotus with the Honda engine he himself had helped develop at Williams, but in a chassis that no longer belonged to the elite.
The Lotus 100T was introduced in February 1988, designed by Gérard Ducarouge, the team’s technical director since 1983, in close collaboration with Martin Ogilvie, a long-time engineer at the firm and responsible for the chassis design. It retained the architecture of its predecessor, the 99T, including the possibility of fitting active suspension. However, the team chose to contest the vast majority of races with conventional passive suspension so as not to compromise consistency. The engine was the Honda RA168E, a 1.5-liter turbocharged V6 with four valves per cylinder and double overhead camshafts, which in race specification delivered around 650 horsepower and, in qualifying configuration with the wastegate valves open to maximize turbo pressure, reached approximately 900 horsepower. It was the same powerplant that equipped the McLaren MP4/4 of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, but the comparison would be painful.
The car was nervous, difficult to set up, and did not allow the Honda engine’s power to be fully exploited. While McLaren won 15 of the 16 races on the calendar, Lotus fought for points and, in special circumstances, for a podium. Nelson Piquet’s best performance occurred at the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, where he finished in third place, a result identical to those achieved in San Marino and Brazil, but always far from the top two finishers. Satoru Nakajima, the Japanese driver supported by Honda, managed only one point. At the end of the year, Lotus tallied 23 points and closed the constructors’ championship in fourth place, behind McLaren, Ferrari, and Benetton. Piquet finished sixth in the drivers’ world championship with 22 points, an enormous distance from the 90 points of the champion, Senna. The 100T was the last F1 Lotus equipped with a turbocharged engine. In 1989, Formula 1 entered the era of naturally aspirated 3.5-liter engines.
The 100T thus represents the end of a technical cycle and the moment when Lotus confirmed its transition to a mid-field team. This example is one of six chassis built for the season. It sports the colors of Camel, the main sponsor that had defined the team’s visual identity since 1987, and the world champion’s number 1, brought by Nelson Piquet from Williams. After the end of the season, this chassis was preserved and continues to participate in various historic events and demonstrations.
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Model: Lotus 100T
Year: 1988
Country: United Kingdom
Potency: 640-675 hp/12,300 rpm (race) / 900 hp (qualifying)
Displacement: 1494 cc
Weight: 540 kg
Top Speed: c. 335 km/h
Engine: Honda RA168E V6 turbo
Designer: Gérard Ducarouge (technical director) and Martin Ogilvie (chassis design)
Best result: 3rd place (San Marino, Brazilian and Australian GP)