The troubled story of F1's greatest racing car
Autosport recently voted the Lotus 72 the greatest grand prix car of all time. Here's the remarkable story of a legend, as told by those involved in its development from problem child to a multiple championship winner
At the back end of 1969, Lotus boss Colin Chapman removed himself from the day-to-day running of his growing organisation, locked himself away and set to roughing out the design of the following year's grand prix challenger. What he emerged with after two weeks were the first sketches of an innovative racing machine that became the type 72.
Some have claimed that the Lotus 72, powered by Cosworth's increasingly ubiquitous DFV, was a game-changer. Yet it didn't send the opposition racing back to the drawing board in the same way as the type 78 and 79 ground-effect chassis did later in the 1970s.
Share Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.