HOW LOTUS BEGAN TO BLOSSOM ON THE FORMULA 1 STAGE
Over a 26-year period, Team Lotus took 74 grands prix victories. Colin Chapman’s team was at the forefront of innovation and ingenious thinking throughout that period, and can be easily credited with reshaping Formula 1 on several different occasions.
That includes introducing sponsorship in earnest, taming ground effect or perfecting the active bolt-ons which defined F1 through to the early 1990s.
The irony for Lotus, which was the UK’s foremost racing car constructor, was that its maiden grand prix win came when the car was in the hands of a privateer. Rob Walker’s team – and indeed driver Stirling Moss – had form for pulling the rug from a manufacturers’feet.
The alliance had
