Talk:Lotus 72

Racing car template
I've had a stab at a template for racing cars (see template:Racing car) to summarise the usual data. I've used the F1 templates as a starting point and applied it to the Brabham BT46 article. If anyone's got an interest in this, please have a look at the template and modify or suggest changes as appropriate. After a few people have had a go at it and we have something we're happy with we could start to use it more widely. Note that it's not meant to be specific to F1, by the way. Cheers. 4u1e 09:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Rindts death
Rindt was almost certainly going to win the world championship but was killed in a qualifying crash at Monza, driving the 72 with its critically important wings removed. There is no doubt, that Rindts accident was caused by a break of the shaft-to-inboard-brakedisc connection! It wasn´t a aerodynamic problem. Cheers by ebertplatz, germany —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.173.156.114 (talk) 20:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've removed the words "critically important", thereby hopefully avoiding any suggestion that the removal of the wings was responsible for the crash. DH85868993 (talk) 11:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Picture
Is that picture of Ronnie Peterson's car really his car? Why It's number number one then?--87.94.230.53 (talk) 09:58, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Since the 1973 World Champion, Jackie Stewart, retired at the end of that season, for 1974, Lotus, as reigning Constructors' Champions, were allocated the numbers 1 and 2. DH85868993 (talk) 13:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

1973 Season
The reference to an ""internal fight"" is misleading - Fittipaldi and Peterson were rarely in the point-scoring positions together. Retirements, mainly due to mechanical failure, were their downfall; besides, Stewart did win five races and otherwise was rarely out of the points. Halmyre (talk) 10:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Suspension and the Tyrrell experience
Probably worth noting that the suspension of the 72 was via torsion bars, as opposed to coil springs used by every other team. This layout, along with the inboard disc brakes, was also partially employed in the Tyrrell 006 used by Stewart and Cevert three years later, in 1973. Interestingly, Tyrrell reverted to coil spring and damper units and outboard front discs for the 007 in 1974. One of the reasons cited for this at the time was that the more conventional layout was a lot easier to set up. With new and relatively inexperienced drivers in Scheckter and Depailler, Tyrrell and designer Derek Gardner sought to get results sooner rather than later.

Given that the 72 took two years to really mature, one can only wonder how Fittipaldi managed to do as well as he did so early on, since presumably, the Lotus was just as difficult. Rather than trying to simplify things, Chapman elected to go for the Lotus 76 which capitalised on a lot of the experience of the 72 but failed to achieve anything significant. The 76 reverted to a more conventional suspension system of coils and dampers.

Unfortunately, I have no ready source for any of this, other than my decreasingly reliable memory. I seem to remember Automobile Year 74 having something about the matter but if anyone else has any similar info I'd welcome it.

I'm just a bit surprised that the torsion bar suspension doesn't rate a mention, as it does in the general article on Lotus.Flanker235 (talk) 13:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)