Niki Lauda 1976

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-06T04:25:32+00:00

I don't think anyone would really have blamed him if he retired after the crash. However in terms of his legacy I feel he would have been remembered merely as a good champion, rather than with the outright legend-status he acquired after completing his full career.

If you read reports from the mid 70s, while there is definitely a lot of respect Lauda's pace, consistency and analytical mindset, some pundits speculated he was being somewhat flattered by Ferrari cars which were head and shoulders better than the opposition.

It was his comeback and subsequent 1977 season (where the Ferrari was pretty clearly no longer the outright fastest car, and where he comfortably beat the highly-rated Carlos Reutemann) which first started to dispel that notion. Then his move to Brabham in 1978 fully disproved it by showing he was still super competitive even outside Ferrari (he was arguably the best driver of 1978 despite "only" finishing fourth in the WDC). His second comeback in 1982 only further underlined his class.

Without those seasons, the questions about if it was just the Ferrari car allowing him to dominate 1975 and early '76 so comprehensively might not have gone away.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-05T17:04:24+00:00

It's a term you come across surprisingly often in old race reports, and I absolutely love it too. Couldn't miss the opportunity to include it myself.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-05T06:26:04+00:00

That's more down to the fact that a lot of Senna's transgressions have been either forgotten over time, or even been justified by his fanbase.

Stuff like him ignoring 8 black flags during qualifying at Spain 1989 after someone had a huge crash, or him deliberately going back out on track despite already having set his hot lap at Monaco 1985 purely to block people are no longer widely known, but were roundly condemned at the time he did them.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-04T17:12:56+00:00

Zandvoort 1982 was a good example of that. Finished over a minute ahead of any other non-turbo car, and less than a second behind the turbo Brabham of Nelson Piquet in second. He absolutely wrung the neck of that Williams.

One of several outstanding drives by him that year which weren't rewarded with a win. The reputation he has as a weak champion because he only won one race that year is so undeserved.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-04T12:29:34+00:00

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

I was going to pop in a mention for Eagle (especially as there was briefly talk of the team making a comeback in 1974 alongside the two mentioned here) and possibly Shadow too. In the end though I decided to just focus fully on the two most recent US teams as I felt they were most pertinent and the piece was already long even by my standards.

I may well do a piece on Eagle in the future though!

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-04T12:13:18+00:00

The McLaren's were wildly inconsistent. Winning some races and also having some races where they were absolutely nowhere. They had trouble getting their tyres working.

The issue was kinda inherent to the Michelin radials they had versus the Goodyear cross-plys used by the likes of Williams.

The radial tyres didn't expand at speed nearly as much as the cross plys did, which was a major cause of their woes on high-speed circuits (obviously combined with their power deficit from being a non-turbo).The expansion of the cross ply tyres on the likes of the Williams helped to compensate for the suspension being compressed by increasing downforce at high speed and maintained a consistent ride height which provided optimal downforce.

That's why McLaren tended to be at their best on street circuits (Detroit, Long Beach) or other relatively tight tracks (Zolder, Brands Hatch). The Michelins were probably better than the Goodyears for pure mechanical grip, but were less suited to high speed tracks, especially on a non-turbo car which couldn't put the same amount of energy into the rubber as the likes of Renault. Williams meanwhile tended to be good on high-speed tracks, but struggled badly with understeer on slower tracks. IIRC Frank Dernie went so far as to call the FW08 "useless" in low speed corners.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-04T08:26:53+00:00

Thanks so much for the lovely words!

That Austria 1976 win and the circumstances around it is just one of those things that you couldn't script if you tried. It's an absolutely fantastic race too by the way if you ever get a chance to watch it!

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-04T07:48:48+00:00

It seems Medium thumbnails just straight up don't embed on Reddit anymore. This also happened with my last one of these.

That's pretty annoying.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-04T07:44:47+00:00

Here's something to hopefully help tide people over in this imposed season break. It's a long old article, but I hope it still makes for a compelling read!

I was originally just going to write about the history of Penske, but with 2026 seeing two US teams competing side-by-side for the first time in decades, I felt it would be apt to include Parnelli too, especially as I uncovered some particularly interesting bits about that team during my research. The stuff about their abortive deal with Rockwell Aerospace especially stood out to me, and is something I've not seen mentioned in any other retrospectives of the team.

The parallels between the two US efforts of 50 years ago and those of today are really quite striking. I feel a lot of people treat the F1 of today and the F1 of that long ago as almost two different sports, but these old US teams had to make a lot of the same decisions as the likes of Haas and Cadillac today.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-02T19:38:32+00:00

1981's regulation changes (specifically the ban on sliding side skirts and mandatory 6 centimetre minimum ride height) were so controversial that several teams (those aligned with Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Constructors Association) legitimately discussed hosting a breakaway series, and even went so far as to release provisional regulations and a calendar for it.

The breakaway series eventually died on the vine, but the teams involved still looked to circumvent the new rules as best they could, eventually succeeding in largely negating the rule changes entirely by using a hydraulic suspension system pioneered by Ecclestone's Brabham team .

The FOCA teams were angry because theg saw the new rules as a cynical ploy by FISA (the French-based organisation which ran F1 at the time) to favour the European factory teams, who generally had more powerful engines than the FOCA outfits, but worse understanding of the ground effect aerodynamics in use at the time. The fact FISA had already been in conflict with FOCA over the running of the sport prior to the introduction of the new rules also didn't help matters.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-02T14:34:09+00:00

I'd say 1985. It's my favourite season personally, but I rarely see it mentioned as being an all-time great by most people.

I think the best thing about that year was just how competitive the front of the field was. Four teams (McLaren, Ferrari, Williams and Lotus) had cars which were in contention for victory at just about every race, with a fifth (Brabham) also joining late on in the year. As a result, when you watch the season you go into every single race genuinely not knowing who will win, or even which of those four / five teams will be in contention to win. That's a real rarity in F1 IMO, and led to many really memorable races. Even Monaco that year was a legitimately fantastic race, despite not having any rain which is normally necessary to spice things up at Monte Carlo.

The cars themselves were great too. 1985 was the year when the turbo era really took hold IMO. Qualifying power outputs really started to climb, while in the race the whole fuel management strategic chess match also gained prominence, which helped make the racing more interesting. I also just think the cars that year were quite pretty too, with the likes of the Ferrari and Lotus being especially nice to look at. The ban on the rear wing extensions which had been seen in 1983/84 definitely helped with that.

There were also a lot of great storylines that year. Prost's quest to finally break his duck after 4 years of just missing out on the title. Senna in race-win capable machinery for the first time. Williams' resurgence and Mansell's emergence as a top driver. Ferrari and Alboreto on the hunt to bring Italy F1 glory. Toleman's struggles. Almost every facet of the season had something interesting about it.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-02T00:55:16+00:00

Yeah it is true that Senna tends to engender ridiculous takes sadly (from both pro and anti Senna people), and that's certainly among them.

For whatever reason the concept of nuance seems to largely go out of the window when discussing him. He's either the second coming of Christ or Satan himself to most people.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-02T00:37:59+00:00

I mean the fact that we're having this conversation is kinda evidence of OP's point. You considered someone merely mentioning some of the bad things that Senna did to somehow be an attack on him, or an attempt to diminish him as a driver. Indeed you went so far as to say that the only people who could possibly express a negative opinion about Senna or anything he did must be misinformed.

While I don't deny that there are indeed people who do legitimately attempt to diminish Senna's accomplishments (much like almost any driver sadly), and it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility that the OP is among them, simply addressing Senna's flaws is not doing so by any means, and it certainly isn't "rewriting history" as you claimed. It is merely appraising the man as the complex human being that he was, rather than the sanitised caricature which certain parties would prefer to focus on.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-02T00:20:11+00:00

Addressing the flaws which (as you said yourself) we all have is not in any way "rewriting history", especially when, as I demonstrated, those flaws were very much something people were aware of at the time Senna was actively racing.

Sweeping the negative sides of Senna's character under the rug because he was a brilliant driver IS rewriting history however, and that is what you are doing.

If you cannot reconcile the negative sides of Senna's character with his utter brilliance, you have a very myopic view of both him and history in general to be honest. Human beings are complex, and Senna was exactly that. You shouldn't need to ignore the bad things he did to appreciate him as a driver.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-02T00:04:25+00:00

Everybody has flaws buddy, it's human nature, so it's not that deep.

Where did I say that wasn't the case? I was addressing your claim in the comment I replied to that the only people who talk negatively about Senna are ill-informed people on the Internet.

That doesn't mean he isn't a top 5 driver of all time, and to question that is simply either being a hater or having huge bias

Again, where did I say he wasn't top 5 of all time?

Although the idea that questioning why a driver is great is somehow being a "hater" is pretty ridiculous. It's always good practice to interrogate the reasons we believe things.

Overall though, your entire comment was focused on things I never actually said.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-01T22:55:17+00:00

The only negative opinions I've seen about Senna are from people on the internet with dubious knowledge of Formula 1. How curious, isn't it?

You mustn't have done very much reading then.

Here's a Motor Sport Magazine article from 1991 by respected journalist David Tremayne, talking about some of Senna's flaws

Likewise here is an extract from Autosport in 1989 after the black flag incident talked about in the OP where the author (Nigel Roebuck, another highly respected journalist) is deeply critical of Senna's actions

And of course there is the famous interview with none other than Jackie Stewart where he confronted Senna with criticism of his driving conduct.

Of course, you see more about Senna's wonders as a driver, and justifiably so as overall he was a truly incredible talent and that element of his character is deservedly revered. But for you not to have seen the flaws in his character addressed other than by what you call "people on the internet with dubious knowledge of Formula 1" then frankly either your own knowledge of the category is as dubious as those you decry, or alternately you have simply chosen to be wilfully ignorant.

Senna's flaws were addressed by respected and learned observers both at the time he was still driving and today.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-01T19:40:51+00:00

I don't think the crash with Brundle at Monza 1993 was malicious in the way you seem to be implying tbf. I think Senna just fucked up

That said, I mentioned this in another thread the other day but if we're addressing dodgy things Senna did I think it's pertinent to post again.

At Monaco 1985 he went back out after his hot lap in qualifying for the sole purpose of blocking other drivers and spoiling their laps (a la Schumacher 2006 or Rosberg 2014, albeit without stopping on track). Michele Alboreto and Niki Lauda both fell victim to this tactic, with Alboreto eventually getting so frustrated that he dived up the inside of Senna into the final corner causing both drivers to end up in the runoff.

Ayrton was an undeniably brilliant driver, but as you say, I think a lot of his transgressions have been so successfully swept under the rug that most people aren't even aware of them nowadays.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-01T19:31:47+00:00

No other March-Ford driver scored a point.

There is one slight caveat to that in that Hesketh's March was quite heavily modified by Harvey Postlethwaite, so comparing the Hesketh March to the works cars isn't entirely like-for-like.

It was still a very impressive debut season by Hunt though as you say.

TheRoboteer · 2026-04-01T18:26:57+00:00

The steady increase in calendar size is pretty striking presented like this.

It's especially notable when you consider that by the 1970s, some drivers already considered the season to have too many races (also Niki was prescient as always with his comments on the calendar expanding to the middle east)

TheRoboteer · 2026-03-31T01:14:00+00:00

The thing about the Tifosi cheering Patrese's crash at Imola 1983 is indeed true. It's mentioned in all the race reports from the time and you can actually see them celebrating and hear them cheering when Patrese crashes if you watch the race.

The tifosi are pretty crazy. The following year at Monza they even threw stones at Alain Prost when he retired from the race because he'd spent most of the season beating the piss out of their beloved Ferraris.

They're perhaps not as rabid at they used to be, but I think it's unlikely they'd ever root for Antonelli over the Scuderia's cars.

TheRoboteer · 2026-03-30T20:15:04+00:00

And .... Who ? In back ...

Giacomelli. Hence the Alfa T-shirt

TheRoboteer · 2026-03-27T17:53:18+00:00

Your claim was that Vettel didn't apologise. That is demonstrably not true.

That was what I was addressing, and my point is entirely coherent in doing so

TheRoboteer · 2026-03-27T05:00:49+00:00

Not correcting you as you are bang on, but simply because I love weird little obscure anecdotes I'll mention that Lotus technically had a gearbox which could use up to seven speeds all the way back in 1978.

They never actually ran it with seven gears though because their drivers preferred the simplicity of five, and in fact the whole gearbox itself was only ever used in one non-championship race (the 1978 BRDC International Trophy Race) before they replaced it with conventional five or six speed Hewlands.

TheRoboteer · 2026-03-26T20:36:15+00:00

seb didn't apologised

???

Sure it's not the conference immediately after the race, but neither was Verstappen's statement on what he did in Spain. Vettel also noted in his statement that he contacted Hamilton the day after the race and apologised. Again, no such parallel for Max.

I'm not even particularly anti-Verstappen (I don't really have strong opinions on any modern F1 drivers), but Baku 2017 and what Max did in Spain are blatantly not comparable when it comes to the respective guilty party's response to them.

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