F1 People - Colin Chapman
- Length: 4:43
- Size: 4.4 MB
- File: people8.mp3
- Transcript: people8.pdf
- Torrent: people8.torrent
Welcome to the second series of F1 People, seven short shows brought to you by Sidepodcast, chronicling the lives of important people in the world of F1. Last time round we looked at Michael Schumacher, Enzo Ferrari, Frank Williams and others. Obviously there are more than seven VIPs in F1, and we had several comments last time round suggesting people we may have missed. Thus, F1 People, series 2, is here to expand on our list, starting with Colin Chapman.
Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman was born on the 19th May 1928, in London, where he grew up and went to University to study mechanical engineering. While he was a student, he learnt to fly and joined the Royal Air Force when he was 20. He wasn’t there for long, although the experience gave him a taste for aeronautical engineering that transferred to his love of cars. After leaving the RAF, Chapman became a member of the 750 Motor Club, a UK based racing club that specialises in Austin’s.
The first car that Chapman built was based around a 1930 Austin Seven and he named it Lotus. The car was entered into some minor races and was so successful that more versions were built. At this point, Chapman was working at the British Aluminium Company, but his girlfriend lent him the money to start up the Lotus Engineering Company. He partnered with Michael Allen and in 1953, Frank Costin joined the company to help create the Lotus Mk 8. The success of this car allowed Chapman to leave his job and work for Lotus full time. Whilst building and producing road and race cars, Chapman’s expertise was sought by Vanwall and BRM who both used him as a consultant to their racing teams.
In 1956, Chapman combined his experience with building cars, and working with the teams, to build his first single-seater, and two years later, he entered the car in its first Grand Prix at Monaco. Graham Hill and Cliff Allison were the first to drive the Lotus 12s in F1. A couple of iterations later, Chapman switched the engine from the front of the car to the rear, and in 1960, the Lotus 18 won its first race with Stirling Moss at the wheel. Team Lotus, however, didn’t win until the next year, at the US GP.
The 1960s were a dominant period for Lotus. Jim Clark won seven races in 1963 with the Lotus 25 – the first chassis to feature a monocoque. This came from Chapman’s aeronautical engineering background, and helped make the cars lighter and stronger. They were also much better for the driver in the event of a crash. Graham Hill was world champion in 1968 with the Lotus 49 – the first car to feature commercial sponsorship. Chapman’s desire to have commercial backing was a key factor in building the big-business sport that F1 is today.
Also in 1968 came the death of Jim Clark. He and Colin Chapman had become close friends through their many races and wins together. Clark died after his Lotus veered off the road and crashed into some trees. Chapman was very publically devastated, saying he had lost his best friend. He ordered the green and yellow Lotus badge to be replaced on all Lotus cars to a black badge for a month after Clark’s death.
The world championship wins continued into the 70s, and as the successes rolled in, the company began to grow, moving to Norfolk, and building up its sports car infrastructure. In the middle of the 1970s, Lotus began to look at ground-effects, successfully harnessing the innovative technology to help the Lotus 79 win the world championship with Mario Andretti at the wheel. Whilst ground effects were a major advancement in terms of the technology, they were also surrounded by controversy, and eventually banned in the 1980s.
In 1982, Chapman began work on active-suspension technologies, but this was never completed. He died of a heart attack in December that year, aged just 54 years.
After his death, a scandal emerged involving the DeLorean Motor Company. In 1992, Fred Bushell, a close colleague of Chapman’s pleaded guilty to “conspiring with the late Colin Chapman and others to defraud the DeLorean Motor Company.” He went to prison for four years, and it’s assumed that had Chapman been alive, he also would have received sentencing.
None of that takes the edge off the fact that he was one of the great innovators of Formula 1. Without Chapman, and his Lotus team, several of the major stepping stones in F1 technology may never have been made. He remains the engineering mind that all others look up to.
Thanks for listening to this first episode of F1 People (series 2). Don’t forget you can leave your thoughts on Colin Chapman on the blog, you can leave a voicemail on 0121 28 87225, or you can email me on christine @ sidepodcast.com. Join me tomorrow when we’ll take a look at another important name in F1.
Theme music: Natives of the New Dawn, People.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 pmChristine said:
According to the calendar, this should be going up on Thursday. Are we actually early for something?
Woohoo!
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 pmme said:
yes you are.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 pmSteven Roy said:
Congratulations on being early.
Chapman is a hard subject to cover in a few minutes given that he started a team, was team principal and was the greatest innovator in F1 history. Even if he did nick a few ideas and take credit for other people’s ideas.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:39 amScott Woodwiss said:
Very nice start to series 2
One of the notable things Chapman did at races was, if one of his cars won, to run onto the track and throw his cap up into the air when his car/s crossed the line to win. I know this after watching a few video clips of races from the 70s. This was obviously before any kind of safety was a major priority
It’s also notable to mention that Gordon Murray apparently was once quoted saying “If you’d cut me open, I’d bleed Lotus.” Seems like Colin truely was an inspiration to other great designers and engineers.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:28 amSteven Roy said:
If Chapman hadn’t been so absolutely obsessed with making everything as light as possible and with the minimum of safety margin Lotus would probably have won a lot more than they did. His mantra was add lightness and he believed a perfectly designed F1 car should fall apart as it crossed the line. It should be able to do its job but not carry any excess weight at all.
Most of the 60s and 70s was Chapman’s chassis against Ferrari’s engines.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 amGaulty (What the hell happens at 1 in the morning) said:
Cool start to the series, haven’t listened to it yet but will get a chance sometime today.
Can you at least stick to the deadline
It’s playing up with my diary.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:01 amme said:
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:22 amMattw said:
An interesting subject is Chapman - so many sides to his character.
the Active suspension program was completed, but not in Chapmans lifetime - Lotus first raced it in 1987 (Ayrton Senna winning twice that year)
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 amChristine said:
Ah yes, sorry. That’s a badly constructed sentence.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 amMattw said:
I have just sent that complaint to James Allen (as per your husband’s instructions)
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:36 amSteven Roy said:
I suppose the final chapter on the active story is that the Williams version of active which they called re-active was Mansell’s unfair advantage in his championship winning year. So although neither Chapman nor Lotus won a championship with it the technology or a development ended up being such a huge step forward that it won the championship and was subsequently banned. Kind of sums up Chapman’s technology. It either won or was banned or both.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 pmMattw said:
When Lotus introduced the active suspension in 87, It was very much ahead of it’s time (despite the two wins), and eventually the team dropped the system for a while.
Williams first introduced their system in 88 - running it for half a year, then binning it after Manasell qualified back in 14th for the British GP. They took the (re)active suspension off the car after qualifying, going back to a normal passive suspension (despite not having run the car in this configuration all weekend, and perhaps not since the season began). The race was wet, and Mansell shot through the field, and finished 2nd
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:56 pmStuart Codling said:
Adrian Newey has said that active suspension made the cars heavy to drive and lacking in ‘feel’ – that they would move around a lot, “like a Citroen 2CV”. Some drivers just couldn’t get around the lack of feel for grip. You just had to trust it to get round the corner, hence the big gap between Mansell and Patrese in 1992. Patrese couldn’t bring himself to commit as much as Mansell.