11 replies to this topic

[Uxoros]

I'm asking myself why Williams was dominating in '87 before ending way back of McLaren the next year. Also I noticed that Williams and Ferrari used hybrid cars. The F1-87/88 for Ferrari and the FW11B (who brought Piquet to the title) for Williams.

So, I'm wondering why some teams dropped back between 1987 and 1988 and why others (like McLaren) became stronger.

Here are some facts about the cars :

Lotus

1987


Model : 99T
Engine : Honda RA166E V6TC
WCC : 3rd (64 pts)
Wins : 2
Poles : 1
Fastest Lap : 3

1988


Model : 100T
Engine : Honda RA166E V6TC
WCC : 4th (23 pts)
Wins : 0
Poles : 0
Fastest Lap : 0

99T :


100T :




Ferrari

1987


Model : F1-87
Engine : Type 033 V6TC
WCC : 4th (53 pts)
Wins : 2
Poles : 3
Fastest Lap : 3

1988


Model : F1-87/88
Engine : Type 033B V6TC
WCC : 2nd (65 pts)
Wins : 1
Poles : 1
Fastest Lap : 4

F1-87 :




Williams

1987
http://uxoros.free.fr/87_88/fw11b

Model : FW11B
Engine : Honda RA167G V6TC
WCC : 1st (137 pts)
Wins : 9
Poles : 12
Fastest Lap : 7

1988


Model : FW12
Engine : Judd CV V8
WCC : 7th (20 pts)
Wins : 0
Poles : 0
Fastest Lap : 1

FW11 :


FW12 :




McLaren

1987


Model : MP4/3
Engine : TAG-Porsche TTE PO1 V6T
WCC : 2nd (76 pts)
Wins : 3
Poles : 0
Fastest Lap : 2

1988


Model : MP4/4
Engine : Honda RA168E V6T
WCC : 1st (199 pts)
Wins : 15
Poles : 15
Fastest Lap : 10

MP4/3 :


MP4/4 :





So, Williams and McLaren changed the engine supplier between 1987-1988. Lotus and Ferrari had both the same.
Lotus has changed the design a lot between the 99T and the 100T. But I noticed that the 100T had some common points with the MP4/4. So why was Lotus back ? Was it because of the engine ?
Also, Williams had quite a good chassis in 1987 and then they drop back the next year. Is that because of the Judd engine ?
Ferrari were quite consistent in 87-88. Why did they use quite the same chassis ? The improved a little bit in 1988 but they just couldn't get the same pace as McLaren.
Finally McLaren. I looked to the MP4/4 and thought "but compared to the FW12, it doesn't looks as fast". Was the chassis FW12 better than the MP4/4 and did the engine only make the difference ?
Only the front of the MP4/4 who looks different, but the engine cover seems to be quite the same as the MP4/3. I know also that McLaren did a lot of testing with the MP4/3 and the Honda engine. Look to these pictures from 1987 :

MP4/3 in race :


MP4/3 in testing (notice the Honda acronym) :



Could we compare this to now and say that the MP3/3 was a "laboratory car" like the MP4/18 today ? Maybe the history could be repeated and McLaren dominate next year like they did in 1988 ??

[Marcel Visbeen]

I think the key of your comparison is in the engines:
For 1988 McLaren got the 'works' Honda engines, that Williams used in 1987. Remember that the Honda engine's that Lotus used were 'costumer'-engines.
Williams ended up with non-turbo Judd engines for 1988 and was out of competition. Ferrari where never real championship candidates in those days.

And I guess you miss one (most) important thing in your comparison: the drivers!
Apart from Honda engines, McLaren got Ayrton Senna alongside Alain Prost and I think for 1988 they simply had the best drivers, the best engine and the best chassis. And that made them even more unbeatable as a team than Ferrari last year!

[Mohican]

There were some fairly drastic regulation changes brought in for 1988, prior to turbos being banned from 1989.

Honda was the only engine supplier to build a new engine only for the '88 season, on top of which McLaren built a completely new chassis (as opposed to '87 car which was developed from the first turbo car of 1984) whereas for instance Ferrari kept what had been competitive in 1987 and then concentrated on developing the new Barnard-designed V12 "atmo" car for '89.

And yes, McLaren had Prost and Senna - clearly the best, and most motivated, drivers.

As for the Lotus: the chassis was simply not competitive, Piquet probably lacked motivation and the team itself was stretched beyond capacity.

Finally, Williams had a Judd customer engine that year. Enough said.

[petefenelon]

Quote

Originally posted by Marcel Visbeen
I think the key of your comparison is in the engines:
For 1988 McLaren got the 'works' Honda engines, that Williams used in 1987. Remember that the Honda engine's that Lotus used were 'costumer'-engines.

Honda claimed that both teams had identical engines... I've seen a quote from someone at Honda who claimed they said something like 'there's the truck - take your pick of the engines'.

(although Honda's claims on that front sometimes don't bear too close scrutiny ;) )

[petefenelon]

Quote

Originally posted by Mohican


As for the Lotus: the chassis was simply not competitive, Piquet probably lacked motivation and the team itself was stretched beyond capacity.

Finally, Williams had a Judd customer engine that year. Enough said.

As well as trading an on-form Senna for an off-form Piquet, Lotus had also gone from a very good active to a mediocre passive suspension into 1988.... (Lotus Engineering were paying for the development of Active on the F1 cars...)

[Uxoros]

Ok, thanks for your replies. It was helpfull.;)

[No27]

It all was related to the transfer of Piquet to Lotus. Piquet felt unhappy at Williams, he was contracted as no.1 but in fact was treated equally with Mansell. This situation led to several tricks like screwing up Nigel's pitstops and hiding al the closet paper in the Williams area when Nigel suffered diarea. Piquet prefered the situation he had at Brabham, where the whole team turned around him. Meanwhile, Honda wanted Nelson more than they wanted Williams. So when Piquet left Williams, Honda went with him and put Nakagima in car No2. From memory, it all happened late in the off season, so Williams found themselves with nothing but Judd engines to bolt on the chassis.

At McLaren, they had the best engines and the best drivers and probably the best chassis. The quality of their chassis has been put to question by those who believe the driver/engine arrangement would have won anything, no matter how good or bad the chassis were.
Anyway, Ferrari didn't came up with something strong enough besides the single victory of Gerhard Berger.

And so one of the most boring seasons in the history of Formula 1 was created.

[cheesy poofs]

Quote

Originally posted by petefenelon

As well as trading an on-form Senna for an off-form Piquet...

I don't think Piquet was really that off-form at that point. I tend to think that his motivation began to drop down as well as Lotus' performance well into the season and into 1989...

[Marzal]

Gordon Murray's McLaren MP4/4 was probably the best chassis of the field that year, in addition to the powerful Honda engine.

That car was a development of the ultra-low '86 Brabham BT 55, which otherwise proved as an dissapointing failure (there was a very nice article about it on Racecar Engineering)
The fuel starvation and weigth distribution problems were solved in the McLaren, and the rest is history.

I guess that certain Senna and Prost had their share on it, probably...

[petefenelon]

Quote

Originally posted by Marzal
Gordon Murray's McLaren MP4/4 was probably the best chassis of the field that year, in addition to the powerful Honda engine.

That car was a development of the ultra-low '86 Brabham BT 55, which otherwise proved as an dissapointing failure (there was a very nice article about it on Racecar Engineering)
The fuel starvation and weigth distribution problems were solved in the McLaren, and the rest is history.

I guess that certain Senna and Prost had their share on it, probably...

The lay-down engine was, to use a computing term, a kludge. That a two-year-old chassis concept could utterly dominate F1 when it got the right engine shows that Murray is right up there in the pantheon of alltime great designers - not too many chassis concepts are still winning GPs regularly in their third year. 250F, '56 Vanwall, Lotus 25/33, 49, 72, M23, Murray's own BT49, FW07, MP4/2, the Newey Williams and McLarens (which in t'owd days would have been a stream of B and C and D models, really...)

Of course Murray reckons (in Alan Henry's Brabham book) that had they not gone Alfa for '76 a developed 44 could've kept winning until Lotus got ground effects up and running...;) -- 'course, you could also claim that the 44 was just a tidied up BT42 (didn't some BT42s turn into BT44s?) so you could claim that the BT42/44 concept was still competitive in its third year...

[fines]

Problem is just that MP4/4 was a Steve Nichols design...

[though Murray probably had a finger in the pie as well!]


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[bigbrickz]

It seems that McLaren's dramatic success in 1988 is down to a) some very clever engineering and b) major technological investements by McLaren and Honda for the last turbo season, whereas the main competition were more focused on preparing their atmospheric future.

Paraphrasing/quoting from "McLaren Honda Turbo A Technical Appraisal" by Ian Bamsley :

Gordon Murry moved to McLaren as technical director at the end of 1986, the season his lowline Brabham BT55 ran poorly, and was thus responsible for the design of the MP4/4 of 1988, but not the MP4/3 of 1987.

Barnard had left McLaren in autumn 1986 and the MP4/3 was a "design by commitee" evolution of Barnard's long standing design.

Honda designed their '88 engine around a 5.5" clutch rather than the 7.25" clutch everyone else was using, thus the whole engine and driveline could be ~2" lower than the competition. McLaren designed a new 3-axis transmission to with the low new engine.

With the low Honda engine Murray found he could reproduce the actual BT55 seating position, keeping bevelled upper cockpit a and fuel tank flanks in line with the cam covers. Thus the MP4/4 fully benefited from the lower center of gravity and better aerodynamics the new engine allowed.

On the other hand Lotus didn't produce a low-line fuselage nor a bespoke transmission. Instead it angled its powertrain upwards, increasing the frontal area of the engine, disrupting flow to the rear wing and lifting the center of gravity of it together with that of the transaxle.