Why unloved Lotus 76 may be Colin Chapman's most significant car
A wide variety of Lotus cars are often proffered as the ultimate F1 game-changer – but was the Lotus 76 an unusual candidate which trumps them all?
Silverstone holds a Formula 1 World Championship race for the 50th time this weekend. During that time, Ferrari has only ever missed one event – the very first championship race in 1950. Ferrari have won 13 of those races and McLaren is the second most successful team at Silverstone with 12 victories.
The most successful driver is Alain Prost who won the British Grand Prix on five occasions – all at Silverstone. In contrast, four British GPs at Brands Hatch yielded just a single podium – third in 1986. Jim Clark also won five British GPs but those successes include victories at both Aintree and Brands.
Jenson Button will start the British GP for the 17th time this weekend to equal Graham Hill record for most starts in the race for a British driver. Button has yet to finish on the podium at his home race – fourth in 2004, 2010 and 2014 his best results.
This is Lewis Hamilton’s 10th British GP – the previous nine years include three victories, three pole positions and five podium finishes. He is attempting to win the race for the third year in a row. Despite scoring 46 GP wins so far, Hamilton has never won a single event for three years in a row.
Nico Rosberg has qualified on the front row for the last three years and is a one-time winner at Silverstone (2013). Fernando Alonso won in 2006 and 2011 and both Kimi Räikkönen (2007) and Sebastian Vettel (2009) are also one-time winners.
Williams dominated the early laps 12 months ago and Valterri Bottas came from 14th on the grid to finish second in 2014. Team-mate Felipe Massa was fourth a year ago and has yet to score a podium at Silverstone in 13 attempts. Williams and Ferrari are the only teams to have scored points in every race this season so far.
Daniel Ricciardo has out-qualified his team-mate at all nine 2016 races so far but he has only registered the better finish at five GPs this year.
A wide variety of Lotus cars are often proffered as the ultimate F1 game-changer – but was the Lotus 76 an unusual candidate which trumps them all?
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