The Lotus 87 was a Formula One racing car used by

Team Lotus Team Lotus was the motorsport sister company of English sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars. The team ran cars in many motorsport categories including Formula One, Formula Two, Formula Ford, Formula Junior, IndyCar, and sports car racing. Mor ...

in the second part of the

1981 Formula One season The 1981 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 35th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1981 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1981 Formula One World Championship for Constructors, which were contes ...

and in the first race of the 1982 season.

Design and development

The car, driven by Italian

Elio de Angelis Elio de Angelis (26 March 1958 – 15 May 1986) was an Italian racing driver who participated in Formula One between and , racing for the Shadow, Lotus and Brabham teams. He was killed in an accident while testing the Brabham BT55 at the Pau ...

and future world champion Nigel Mansell, was another step in Lotus' development of ground effect cars. Its predecessor, the

Lotus 81 The Lotus 81 was a Formula One racing car built by Colin Chapman's Lotus team for the 1980 Formula One season. Unlike many of forebears the 81 was not a terribly innovative or competitive car, coming as it did at a time when Chapman's inter ...

had proven to suffer from a chassis that was not rigid enough, compared to the dominant

Williams FW07 The Williams FW07 was a ground effect Formula One racing car designed by Patrick Head, Frank Dernie, and Neil Oatley for the 1979 F1 season. Design 1979 It was closely based on the Lotus 79, even being developed in the same wind tunnel at ...

. Lotus therefore introduced a new chassis, built out of

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

and reinforced by

kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s a ...

sheets, since the team felt carbon fibre alone would not be sufficient to provide the chassis with the stability needed. As the

John Barnard John Edward Barnard (born 4 May 1946, Wembley, London) is an English engineer and racing car designer. Barnard is credited with the introduction of two new designs into Formula One: the carbon fibre composite chassis first seen in with McLar ...

-designed

McLaren MP4/1 The McLaren MP4/1 (initially known as the MP4) was a Formula One racing car produced by the McLaren team. It was used during the 1981, 1982 and 1983 seasons. It was the second Formula One car to use a monocoque chassis wholly manufactured fro ...

would prove, this was a miscalculation. The chassis was originally planned for the ambitious twin-chassis

Lotus 88 The Lotus 88 is an innovative Formula One car designed by Colin Chapman, Peter Wright, Tony Rudd and Martin Ogilvie of Lotus in an effort to maximise the downforce produced by ground effect. The Lotus 88 made its debut at the first practice ...

, but after the car was outlawed, it was hastily rebuilt to become the more conservative 87.

Racing history

The car was not competitive enough to fight for victories, even though the drivers did manage to get some points. When the new turbo charged engines of

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufacture ...

and Ferrari became more reliable, the car proved to be yet still too heavy and was replaced by a lighter 87B specification for the opening round of 1982. It was subsequently replaced altogether by the Lotus 91, which proved more competitive, recording a podium in its first outing in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Formula One World Championship results

( key) * Of these, 13 points were scored with the 87. During the season Lotus switched from Michelin to Goodyear tyres.
** No points scored with the 87B.

References

87 {{F1-stub