Is It Fair To Compare Different Formula One Eras? (Part 3 of 7: The 80’s)
By C. Gonzalez
As mentioned in the previous blog, the rules in Formula one allowed two types of displacements, a 3 Liter normally aspirated engine and a 1.5 liter with super or turbocharging to increase the brake horsepower (bhp.
It was Renault who started the development of these engines in Formula One. The cars were fast and generated a lot of power, but they were also extremely unreliable. In the beginning, only factory-backed up teams like Ferrari, Renault, or Alfa Romeo were able to experiment with these types of engines given the costs involved.
At the beginning of the decade, the car manufacturers were still relying on the ground effect chassis developed originally by Colin Chapman for his Lotus 79 and later implemented by other teams.
The turbo engines were very complex and the layout interfered with the tunnels needed to produce the ground effect so they were very difficult to adapt to the chassis. Teams like Williams and Brabham created their own version of ground effect cars and successfully challenged the Lotuses of Colin Chapman.
They were able to conquer their first championships in 1980 and 82 (Williams) and in 1981 and 83 (Brabham) with a new generation of drivers, Alan Jones and Keke Rosberg driving for Williams and Nelson Piquet driving for Brabham.
Other young drivers were making an impression at the time, for example, Giles Villeneuve with his aggressive style, Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, and Alain Prost also started their careers in the ’80s defining a new generation.
In 1981, McLaren after years of struggling merged with a Formula 2 team, named Project 4 led by a young team director named Ron Dennis, marking the beginning of one of the most successful partnerships in the history of the sport.
That year McLaren introduced the McLaren MP4/1 (McLaren Project-4 — Number 1) with the first carbon fiber composite chassis, a breakthrough since it was an exceptionally light material but also extraordinarily strong. The cars were stiffer than the ones with the traditional honeycomb aluminum chassis, and that allowed the cars to corner at higher speeds.
Initially, they were doubts about the strength of this new material during a crash, however, it was proven that this material was the way to go and by mid-decade, every team was using it.
1983 was a changing point for the sport. Nelson Piquet won his second World Championship title for Brabham using a BMW turbocharged engine.
At that point, the end of the 3 liter normally aspirated engines era was imminent. The teams realized the potential of the new turbo engines and now these were more reliable, so they could exploit them to the maximum on every race.
For comparison, a normally aspirated engine was able to produce 400 bhp in 1967, by 1983 it produced around 530 bhp. The turbo engines were able to produce 640 bhp and by 1986 they were able to produce over 1,100 bhp. Some experts believe that some qualifying engines produced more than 1,400 Bhp!
However, the dynamometers at the time were not able to measure torque very accurately. For comparison Formula 1 engines today are “limited” to around 800 bhp, the combined turbo-hybrid system produces around 950–1,000 bhp.
During this time, Formula 1 became the sport that we know today, with worldwide appeal through TV agreements reaching an unprecedented worldwide audience.
Racing drivers became superstars with fans all over the world and with enormous appeal beyond the traditional F1 enthusiasts. Bernie Ecclestone the former owner of the Brabham team became the ringmaster of the “Grand Circus” as F1 is affectionally known.
He turned it into the multi-billion dollar conglomerate we know today. Also, the rivalries that developed throughout the most dominant teams of the era Williams and McLaren, remain to this day.
There are still a lot of arguments regarding Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell but probably, the most famous of all, the rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost even though more than 25 years have passed since Ayrton’s tragic accident at the San Marino GP on May 1st, 1994.
There are still heated debates between journalists, experts, and enthusiasts regarding who was the best driver, and to this day, no one is ready to concede.
As I mentioned before, two teams dominated the decade: Williams and McLaren. The former began early in the decade with an innovative chassis that was able to maximize the ground effect in 1980 and 1982, while the latter established a partnership with Porsche that led them to the championship in 1984, in one of the closest championships in Formula 1 history.
Niki Lauda beat Alain Prost by only ½ point. This was due to the Monaco GP that, because of the rain conditions, was stopped before more than half the race distance was completed, awarding only half the points.
It was in this race where a young Brazilian, driving for Toleman a middle of the field team, made an impact driving under the rain chasing the McLaren of Alain Prost.
That driver was none other than Ayrton Senna da Silva, to this day there is still speculation that if the F1 authorities would’ve let the race go on, he would have eventually caught up with Prost and passed him. However, there was evidence that Senna’s Toleman had a suspension problem that would have eventually cost him the race, we would never know.
This race was the beginning of the rivalry between these two drivers; Alain Prost had the upper hand since the TAG- Porsche powered McLaren captured 3 consecutive drivers’ championships from 1984 through 1986.
Another engine manufacturer had returned to F1 because of the new rules, Honda had an incursion in F1 in the 1960s. By 1983 with the new engine specification they returned to F1 as an engine supplier to Williams.
The partnership proved to be highly successful and, by 1986, they captured the coveted Formula One Constructors championship for Williams, even though Prost won the drivers’ championship that year driving a McLaren.
In 1988, McLaren got the powerful Honda engine and in conjunction with the chassis, they developed what until recently was the most dominant car in Formula 1 history — The McLaren MP4/4 winning 15 of 16 races in 1988.
That car was so dominant they only failed to win one race that year at the Italian GP after the death, a couple of weeks earlier, of “Il Commendatore” Enzo Ferrari, leading to the urban legend that Enzo “prevented” McLaren to have the perfect season.
An unusual engine failure for Prost, and a crash from Senna while lapping a car with 2 laps to go, allowed the two Ferrari cars to score their only 1–2 finish of the year with Gerhard Berger leading the team.
By this time, the V6 turbo engines had proven its dominance. Several other categories like CART were also using turbo engines.
But in 1987 the rule book of F1 changed again allowing the use of normally aspirated engines with a maximum displacement of 3.5 Liters.
Several middle of the field or back of the field teams used these engines to maintain costs low but, as explained before, even with several restrictions the turbo engines were dominant as proven by McLaren in 1988.
For the next season, 1989, the turbo engines were banned in Formula One opening the era of the V10 and V12 engines that dominated the 1990’s
But that is the subject of next week’s blog. All the best for the New Year to all my readers.
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