Lotus Honda 99T Turbo driven by Ayrton Senna 1987
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Senna’s words, at a test at Donnington circuit, during the winter of 1987 were “That’s it, that’s what I want to run this season. Already it’s better than the ordinary car in some ways. We’ve got to go with it…”
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The Lotus 99T used the active computerised suspension system which compensated for track conditions, speed, steering and even weight changes caused by the ever-decreasing fuel load carried by the car. The car won at Monaco and Detroit and showed the way for Formula One to evolve in the next few years.
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Like carburettors before electronic fuel injection and engine management arrived, the combination of coil spring, hydraulic damper and a geometrically planned linkage for each wheel has reached an extremely refined point. It is impossible for this method of suspension to work perfectly in all circumstances however and it will always be a compromise according to the different variables involved.
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A good analogy, suggested by the designer of the Lotus 99T, Peter Warr, was that of a downhill skier. The complexity of a skilled human skiing downhill at high speed involves perhaps millions of messages and instructions electronically transmitted to and from the brain. Active, while “simple” in terms of the human brain, still has the same immense problem of measuring large numbers of widely differing forces, centralising that information, deciding what actions should be taken to deal with it all, and then sending the necessary instructions to the mechanisms involved to successfully control the contact patch of rubber with the ground. All this must be done in a very short period of time.
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When a skier first learns to ski, he already has a fit, functioning electro-mechanical system, complete with the most sophisticated controls: his body.
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Lotus had not only to learn how to programme its equipment but to create that equipment and make it work at all in the first place.
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The dimensions of the 99T dwarfed those of the Williams FW11B which also competed that year. As well as the poorer drag factor of the bigger body the active suspension proved very definitely to be a double edged sword. It’s hydraulic pump, driven off the back of one of the camshafts, used a chunk of power from the Honda engine. And there was a weight penalty of around 12 kilos. In effect the Lotus Honda needed more power and therefore more fuel to match the straight-line speeds of the of the Williams Honda. With fuel restricted to 180 litres, Senna often had to think economy, which was not his natural way in a race car.
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Ayrton eventually took third in the drivers championship, Nelson Piquet took the title with Williams.
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