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What about it?
Failures of Motorsports - Car Designs, Team Mistakes and More
- Thread starter Panoz
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Well I could not help thinking about how the 76 was supposed to be the successor to the 72 but it only raced 7 times in 1974 (8 if non-championship races are included) and only finished once (4th in Germany with the late Ronnie Peterson). That same year, its predecessor was still competitive enough to win 3 races and had previously secured 3 Constructors titles and 2 Drivers titles. To further rub salt in the wound, by the end of the 1974 season, the 72 had won 1/3 of the races it had competed in with a further 4 wins in non-championship races.
The main problems were with the electronic clutch and engine installation, ruining the weight bias and contributing to the numerous DNFs, although brake failure was a common problem as Jacky Ickx found out. That 4th place in Germany probably would not have happened if the car hadn't been modified with the side-pods enlarged and an improved cooling system. It qualified and finished ahead of the 72 in that race but that was as good as it got for what was supposed to be a technological breakthrough as well as a more advanced version of one of the most successful F1 cars of all time. The only other real highlight for the 76 was both cars qualifying in the Top 5 in Spain and running strongly, with Peterson even leading, before both eventually retired. Even the late Colin Chapman had to admit the team went the wrong way with the 76. To compound the misery of the story of the Lotus 76, the car failed to qualify for its final appearance at Watkins Glen but Tim Schenken illegally started the race anyway and was naturally disqualified 6 laps in and was the first of the Lotuses to retire. All this meant Lotus had to persist with the 72 in 1975, by which time, it was too long in the tooth to be competitive anymore while the team worked on building another successor, the 77, for the 1976 season.
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That one wasn't much better either.
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The 77 won a race at least, along with 4 podiums, a significant improvement on the 76. It also laid the groundwork for the 78 and 79.
The 72 was always going to be a hard act to follow, but after one 4th place and no other finishes, you know something was horribly wrong with the 76.
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Both entries have something in common, they both scored their best results at Snetterton as one-car entries, since Infiniti had withdrawn their support by this time in the latter's case.
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How does everyone feel about Hybrid Technology in Motorsport?
After all, the WRC has abandoned such technology for 2025 and the system used in the BTCC and the costs involved have been cited as the main reasons why that series has suffered a notable decline in entries in recent times, especially ahead of the 2024 season. I am not calling hybrid technology a failure myself, I am just asking how everybody else feels about it.
After all, the WRC has abandoned such technology for 2025 and the system used in the BTCC and the costs involved have been cited as the main reasons why that series has suffered a notable decline in entries in recent times, especially ahead of the 2024 season. I am not calling hybrid technology a failure myself, I am just asking how everybody else feels about it.
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It's a nice technology but it just doesn't improve motorsports at all. A 100 % marketing tool for greenwashing now without any improvement for the viewer.
At the point we are already on modern EVs it doesn't even makes sense on roadcars anymore. Transition technology and it's time is up. As all electrical systems based on batteries lighter batteries would improve it drastically but at the same time would make it even more useless.
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How a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet From Hell Slowed Williams' F1 Cars For Years
One of history's greatest Formula 1 teams, Williams, has apparently been hamstrung by a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for years.
www.thedrive.com
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I don't know if anyone has already talked about it and in that case I apologize... But given that recently, perhaps yesterday IIRC, I mentioned it elsewhere, regarding the transition from the GT1 to the LmGtp class (transition successful only on the Toyota GT-One )... How can we not mention the Lotus Elise GT1 converted, after years, into an LmGtp by the Elite Racing team for the 12 Hours of Sebring 2003 and, theoretically, for a complete program in the 2003 ALMS?
The Lotus Elise GT1 wasn't that competitive, but this one... Even worse. Much worse.
The Lotus Elise GT1 wasn't that competitive, but this one... Even worse. Much worse.
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I don't know if anyone has already talked about it and in that case I apologize... But given that recently, perhaps yesterday IIRC, I mentioned it elsewhere, regarding the transition from the GT1 to the LmGtp class (transition successful only on the Toyota GT-One )... How can we not mention the Lotus Elise GT1 converted, after years, into an LmGtp by the Elite Racing team for the 12 Hours of Sebring 2003 and, theoretically, for a complete program in the 2003 ALMS?
The Lotus Elise GT1 wasn't that competitive, but this one... Even worse. Much worse.
Which one of us was a year out?
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My fault: car was purchased and modified in 2003, but debuted (with bad results like already said) at the 2004 12H of Sebring. Then the project was promptly cancelled (there was no way to make that car competitive against proper LmGtp cars).
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They had a crazy idea, in fact if they had managed (for whatever reason) to be competitive with such an old car then many would have asked more than one question about the current LMP900/LMGTP regulations. But as expected the car performed quite badly, it would be interesting to see the results of the qualifying but I think it went even slower than the LMP675s and only slightly faster than the GT1s of those years (such as the ACEMCO Saleen S7R).
It's worth noting that in those years it happened to witness the attempts of some teams to "resurrect" old cars: perhaps the most famous was that of the Super Aguri F1 team (on track in 2006 with the former 2002 Arrows A23, modified only enough to comply with the new regulations and little else).
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Anyone remember the first time Hyundai competed as a works team in the WRC with the Accent? Poor MSD, effectively went straight from one failure with Peugeot in the BTCC to another with Hyundai in the WRC. From 2000 to 2003, Hyundai usually found themselves fighting with Skoda for the wooden spoon (2002 being the one season where they didn't finish in the bottom two in the Manufacturer's Championship, they came 4th, 1 point ahead of Skoda and Mitsubishi but 57 behind Subaru). Reliability and budget constraints were the main bugbears, especially in 2002 and 2003, but the Hyundai Accent WRC, in all its iterations, only finished in the points 10 times in 48 rallies with 4th being the best result (Kenneth Eriksson, Australia 2000 and Alister McRae, Great Britain 2001). If we only count points scored by the drivers then Hyundai managed just 17 points in 4 years of trying. Results gradually worsened, with 5th for the soon-to-retire 4 time World Champion Juha Kankkunen in New Zealand being the peak in 2002 (not the best way to bow out for one of the WRC's most successful drivers really), and the aforementioned budget constraints eventually led to the team's withdrawal in 2003 with four rounds to go.
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Present! I remember MSD/Hyundai efforts also because an italian rally driver, Piero Liatti, former Subaru driver IIRC, raced with them.
Since you mentioned Skoda, I also remember the mistreated Skoda Octavia WRC which however was capable of a podium at the Safari Rally Kenya with Armin Schwarz at the wheel (but I don't remember the year... 2001 perhaps?)
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You might be in luck here - https://www.racingsportscars.com/
Crazy idea indeed!
Super Aguri actually did reasonably well in their first season. Outperforming Honda in 2007 and SS United defaulting on payments is really what put paid to them.
I swear the Leafield factory must be cursed as all three F1 teams that have been based there fell by the wayside (Arrows, Super Aguri, Caterham).
Yes, the Fabia has been talked about before on this thread but not the Octavia (You were correct, Armin Schwarz, Kenya 2001).
Honda obviously redeemed themselves with Red Bull.In 2015, two of the biggest stories in the motorsport world was the returning partnership of McLaren and Honda in Formula One and Nissan's entrance into the LMP-1 ranks with a radically designed prototype.
Unfortunately both programs endured massive struggles to be competitive all year. McLaren suffered one of the team's worst seasons in their storied history due to reliability issues and power output on the new Honda powerplants. Nissan's radical GT-R LM Nismo program had many delays throughout the entire year. This resulted in the 24 Hours of Le Mans being the car's only race before Nissan pulled the plug on the program while progress was being made.
These two events are just the latest in a long list of disappointments or bad decisions that was been seen in motorsports. From bad car designs, to team or driver performance that lead to poor results and sanctioning bodies making new regulations that later destroyed a series is the point for this thread.
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Elite Racing's crazy idea went even worse than I thought... In qualifying their "LMGTP" (so called) Lotus Elise fared even worse than some GT class cars.
Starting grid of the 2004 12H of Sebring with various lap times: https://www.racingsportscars.com/grid/Sebring-2004-03-20.html
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Too much weird to be a typing error. Probably that time resulted in official documents. Maybe a transponder issue? Who knows.
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Way too fast an average to push a car around the track if an unladen human can only run at about 8 mph.This list shows the same result but also lists a qualifying speed of 7.5 mph. Maybe it broke down when they left the pits and the driver just got out and pushed it around the track.
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Welll, I may have found the answer regardless:
They mention at 18:56 that the Saleen's left front wheel came off during the morning warmups, I obviously haven't watched the whole thing yet to see if they remark on anything else that happened so I'm guessing the car was just suffering from a lot of mechanical issues all weekend.
Edit: Okay, they say the Saleen spun during qualifying and then came in to change the tires, which is not allowed since you have to start on the tires you run qualifying with, so I presume they just recorded that time to officially put them ahead of the cars that had their times invalidated for technical infractions.
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Well anything just for the sake of recording a time without being penalised for breaking the rules!
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Up until now, the slowest time in any form of motor racing I knew of was Perry McCarthy at Monaco in 1992. Some sources credit him and his Andrea Moda as being nearly half an hour off the pace needed to pre-qualify. Well, when you haven't got a proper seat in your car and you're being bounced around to the point of developing double-vision and you're finding it harder to tell which way to turn at Monaco of all places, then what you expect? Not making this up, Perry actually said these things himself, took quite a beating.This list shows the same result but also lists a qualifying speed of 7.5 mph. Maybe it broke down when they left the pits and the driver just got out and pushed it around the track.
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At what point in the vid?
From what I have been able to gather, all everyone seemed to know is that the Saleen encountered a lot of problems that weekend without going into too much detail about them.
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IIRC the ACEMCO team was often let's say "sloppy" in preparing the car, lots of oversights here and there. The car itself, on the other hand, often lacked reliability (I remember for example the Vitaphone Konrad team in the FIA GT, their Saleens were often fast but fragile, but also in the various national championships it often went like this), another proof of this lies in the only class victory at Le Mans obtained in the last edition in which the GT1s participated, again IIRC.
And to think that when the Saleen S7R arrived in Europe it intimidated everyone, I remember that it was the RML (Ray Mallock) team who first believed in this car. Years later I have the feeling that he won less than his potential.
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