BOOK REVIEW TEAM LOTUS: STRUGGLING BEYOND THE POST COLIN CHAPMAN ERA
History is written by the winners, or so the saying goes. And it applies in motorsport, as triumph is explored readily but failure much less so.
Author Ibrar Malik has concluded correctly that the tales of decline are as worthy of investigation though, and in Team Lotus we have perhaps Formula 1’s starkest downfall. “Its brand,” Malik notes, “was arguably the strongest within grand prix racing alongside the Ferrari name.” Yet by the mid1990s Lotus was no more.
Team Lotus: Struggling Beyond The Post Colin Chapman Era is Malik’s follow-up book just a year on from his well-received debut on the tumultuous 1994 F1 season. This time he has paired with Neil White – a passionate researcher of Lotus – to produce an ebook (reviewed here) and audio book, with an illustrated print version to follow later this year.
This covers the period from Lotus kingpin Colin Chapman’s death in late 1982 through to the end of the ’89 season, when the team restructured.
Lotus’s trajectory during this period was not completely downward though and even contained a mini upturn. There were race victories and even, as Malik outlines, everything apparently in place for the ’87 season with Ayrton Senna, Honda engines and active suspension to take the team back to the top. But, just two years on, Lotus was an also-ran.
Much of what made Malik’s 1994 book popular is present here too, with plenty of passion and painstaking research on show. Each season gets two chapters, forensic race-by-race treatment for both Lotus drivers at the time, plus there’s a regular supply of detail and anecdotes.
One in particular is the 1986 Canadian Grand Prix, where fuel consumption was critical. Teo Fabi’s Benetton crashed into the pitwall during practice – just where Lotus’s fuel-monitoring equipment was stationed. This damaged it irreparably and meant the team relied on manual calculations for the rest of the weekend!
Malik, again as in his ’94 book, demonstrates a strong desire to show all perspectives throughout. Yet while the Lotus book is strong at charting this period at the micro-level, it is less strong in what it sets out to achieve in its introduction, namely explaining the bigger picture of the team’s decline.
This analysis is largely confined to the final chapter of 15, as well as in the conclusions of a few of the preceding ones. The book generally is short on first-hand voices who could have offered greater insight. Team members Peter Warr, Peter Wright and Frank Dernie are quoted, providing glimpses of illumination on the book’s central questions. But these are rare and leave a sense of wanting more. Dernie was a direct contributor to the book and it is telling that it is strongest on the ’89 season, when he was technical director at the team.
The impression also is of Malik often relying on conjecture to fill the gaps. His conclusion, that the main explanation for Lotus’s decline was acceding too much to Senna and Nelson Piquet’s demands, particularly for wages, feels preliminary. Factors such as Lotus falling behind rivals in resources as well as technically, and squandering its head start in active suspension, deserve deeper and more contextual investigation. The impact of Chapman’s death is hardly explored.
The book also would have benefited from greater proofing. There is a conspicuous number of incorrect words and typographical and grammatical errors, as well as some unnecessary repetition, which would hopefully be rectified before the book’s print release later this year. Lotus’s decline is a subject worthy of investigation, but this book could have served it a little better.