Lotus 107

The Lotus 107 was a Formula One car designed for the 1992 Formula One Season, it brought in a final, frustratingly limited and short-lived period of competitiveness for the legendary Team Lotus in Formula 1. A fresh design by Chris Murphy (apparently based on an unbuilt design he started at March), it had smooth sweeping lines a world away from the long developed and antique looking 102D. Lotus also harked back to previous glories with a supply of Ford Cosworth HB V8 engines, of a similar - if older - specification to those being used by Benetton. The 107 was the first Lotus to be fitted with a semi automatic gearbox.

With a top notch driving squad of Johnny Herbert and a future double F1 World Champion Mika Häkkinen, the Lotus' were able to bring in some good results - at several races the twin 'Loti' (as BBC commentator James Hunt dubbed them) were able to run in formation on the tail of the leading pack, at least in the early parts of the races. Reliability was not fantastic, but a fair measure of basic speed was obviously there. For a while in 1992 it seemed as if Team Lotus might be able to turn things around and claw their way back to success.

Lotus 107B and 107C

The car was developed over succeeding seasons into B and C variants, the latter with Mugen-Honda power in place of the Cosworth. As was obligatory at the time, the team employed the active suspension technology that they had introduced to F1 back in 1987 on later variants, but the budget wasn't there to make it really work, and besides, it was now far from being a unique capability. Alex Zanardi believes (see his autobiography 'My Story') that the focus on this system was to the detriment of other aspects of the car.

Zanardi (later a two-time Champ Car champion) was an example of the high level of driving talent the team generally continued to employ. Sadly the team's financial difficulties dragged it under at the end of 1994. The Lotus 109, the last Formula 1 Lotus, which ran in the latter part of 1994, was a further derivative of this design.

Drivers included Johnny Herbert, Mika Häkkinen, Alessandro Zanardi, Mika Salo, Pedro Lamy