Winging it: When F1 really started to fly

Of all the great innovations to be tried, tested and perfected in motor racing, the advent of aerofoils sprouting from the rear end of F1 cars in the late 1960s has to be considered the most powerful and influential. Harnessing aerodynamic download, or what was to become common parlance as ‘downforce’, changed the game. It changed the fundamental shape of F1 cars, too, from simple tube-shaped cigar clones of the 1960s to the exotic, rakish and garishly bewinged missiles of the 1970s.

Wings, both on the nose and slung out the back, created the basic profile of what we know as F1 today. Where would be without them? Cynics might say in a place featuring more elegant racing cars that race closer wheel-to-wheel. But you can’t uninvent progress. Wings, and the rapid advance in aerodynamic understanding shaped F1 as we know it today and subsequently the whole automotive landscape.

Breaking ground: Jim Hall

As Adrian Newey says, “It’s interesting how often things now commonplace in F1 were first popularised in sportscar racing.” Monocoque chassis, disc brakes and fuel injection were all pioneered in endurance racing before F1, and so it is with aerodynamics. Newey, like many of his generation, was heavily influenced by Lotus founder Colin Chapman. But Jim Hall and his Chaparrals had a profound impact, too – and on aerodynamics it was Hall who broke the first ground.

The tall Texan became immersed in pioneering design after turning his back on his own promising F1 career as a driver (he raced a Lotus 24 for British Racing Partnership in 1963). Advances in the use of automatic transmissions were coupled with aerodynamic experimentation on his string of Chaparral series 2 designs, the first of which suffered from a serious lift characteristic.

“Well, if I can eliminate lift, why can’t I continue right on through zero and go negative?” Hall told Motor Sport on the logic that drove him forward. “Why don’t I push down on this thing and see if I can increase the traction? And by golly, I was able to do that, too.”

The 2E Can-Am and closed 2F sportscar featured a large aerofoil pitched on high struts over the tail which could be flattened out to reduce drag via a foot pedal – eat your heart out, DRS. Hall also shifted the radiator from its traditional position in the nose into a pair of ducted sidepods, a novel layout that would eventually become the standard. Chapman took a leaf for his Lotus 72.

Hall’s Chaparrals didn’t win much – a single Can-Am race for the 2E; a shock wet-weather Sebring 12 Hours victory for the 2A in 1965; the Nürburgring 1000Kms for the 2D in 1966; the Brands Hatch BOAC 500 for the 2F in 1967 – but along with the astonishing 2J fan car, which preceded Gordon Murray’s Brabham BT46B by a full decade, they sure left their imprint in the minds of other great designers.

When wings first sprouted

Lotus wasn’t even the first to experiment with aerofoils in F1. Both Ferrari and Brabham pre-dated the use of inverted wings, at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix. But Chapman picked up the theme quickly and fully embraced the massive potential, attaching aerofoils to long struts bolted on the rear suspension to convert ‘download’ directly into traction. A shame they were also lethal.

At Rouen for the French Grand Prix, young Jackie Oliver discovered just how much when the slipstream of another car unsettled his Lotus 49 and catapulted it into a brick gatepost at 140mph. His dazed expression as he stood unharmed next to the wreck was likely as much for the prospect of facing Chapman as it was for what he’d just survived.

Across the rest of 1968, such spindly-looking aerofoils on high struts became the new trend for all teams, spoiling the traditional classic lines of F1 cars. At the beginning of the decade’s final season, cars such as Brabham’s BT26A arrived in full bi-plane mode, a wing not only sprouting from the back but also over the nose. In truth, they looked preposterous, and the danger the high wings created was all too obvious.

At the season opener at Kyalami, Jack Brabham’s race was rudely interrupted when his rear aerofoil collapsed. He just held on to the subsequent huge moment, then pitted for it and the front wing to be removed.

Much worse was to follow. At Montjuich Park for the Spanish Grand Prix, both Jochen Rindt and Graham Hill in the Lotus 49s were lucky to escape big shunts caused by further collapses, while Jacky Ickx too experienced disconcerting trouble. His Brabham’s rear suspension failed as a consequence of the twin wings breaking up. Something had to give – and it did, mid-weekend in Monaco when the spindly aerofoils were banned.

Hill, ‘Mr Monaco’ himself, went on to score his then-record fifth win in the Principality, his 49B fitted with a fudged wedge-shaped rear end. By the Dutch Grand Prix, Brabham – like Lotus and the rest – was experimenting with similarly integrated wing solutions in this new quest for aerodynamic downforce.

The BT26A sprouted an upswept aluminium frame supporting a rear aerofoil above the engine cover. Wings were here to stay, but in a profile that would quickly develop into something we recognise today.

The ground effect revolution

Open regulations and a colourful burst of creativity led designers down a range of avenues – not to mention the odd cul-de-sac – as racing car design progressed relentlessly through the 1970s. Then in the latter half of the decade, Chapman and his band of clever engineers roused Team Lotus from its slump in form to create F1’s most profound and influential aerodynamic revolution.

In the moment it was darkest before the dawn for Team Lotus, during the summer of 1975, Chapman presented to his troops the route back to the light in a 27-page concept document of a new direction. It didn’t have all the answers – quite the opposite. Instead, big questions were charged for Tony Rudd, head of his research and development team, to resolve from a new base in a grand old Norfolk manor, Ketteringham Hall.

Rudd, for so long a rival at BRM, had switched sides in 1969 but was initially employed within the empire and away from F1. Now in harness with designer Ralph Bellamy and aero specialist Peter Wright, he followed Chapman in a direction that would leave Team Lotus sucking in the ’70s – in a positive way.

Rudd and Wright had developed a ‘wing car’ concept together way back at BRM. Ground effects, to use a car’s entire form to create aerodynamic suction rather than rely on inverted wings to source downforce for a payment in drag, was far from a new concept, but it needed Chapman to trigger the revolution that would change F1 forever. First, an extensive wind tunnel programme experimented with the theory, shape and form, before Bellamy drew a car for Wright to mould into slippery existence. Layouts finalised, Martin Ogilvie devised the suspension and moving-part details to create the Type 78.

‘Black beauty’ gallops through F1

OK, on shock factor it was no six-wheeled Tyrrell – but it was far more significant. The slim monocoque carried broad pannier full-length sidepods which were the visual indicator of the new direction. Out of sight, an inverted aerofoil section beneath the water radiators in those long sidepods channelled airflow, with potential spillage sealed by skirts that brushed the ground to form a depression beneath the car and suck it to the track. The surface-level wings were only to add trim. The faster the 78 went, the more it sucked – and the more it stuck.

Mario Andretti loved it and worked with Chapman to perfect the concept. The American fell short of beating Ferrari’s Niki Lauda to the 1977 World Title, but he led more laps than anyone and scored four Grand Prix wins, one more than both Lauda and points runner-up Jody Scheckter in the new Wolf.

Team-mate Gunnar Nilsson added another, his only F1 victory, at Zolder. The problem was engine reliability, as Cosworth worked overtime to squeeze more from the now-venerable DFV V8 which was beginning to wheeze in the face of Ferrari’s flat 12.

But the revolution was only at a canter in ’77: it would accelerate to full gallop in ’78 as ‘Black Beauty’ hit its stride. In the Lotus 79, Andretti and his new team-mate Ronnie Peterson swept through the Championship in what remains one of the most striking and important F1 cars. The car scored eight wins in 16 races, including four 1-2s as the ground effect era truly kicked in.

In ten years, F1 had grappled to gain a full grip on aerodynamics as the chase for downforce became a sweet elixir as potent as engine power. New horizons opened up – and a young student called Newey was among those to draw fresh inspiration.

Main image courtesy of Motorsport Images.