S3 E8: The end of Lotus, with Johnny Herbert

Johnny Herbert joins Bring Back V10s to revisit the final year of Lotus in 1994, when the team sadly bowed out of F1 without even scoring a point.

Herbert, Glenn Freeman and Edd Straw go through Lotus's entire final season in great detail, from starting the year with a C-spec version of its 1992 car, with an ageing "dumbell" of an engine, which was finally replaced at the Italian Grand Prix - where Johnny famously qualified fourth. Johnny and Edd both offer their theories on where he could have finished that day at Monza, were it not for a heartbreaking punt from Eddie Irvine at the start. The following day Lotus went into administration.

We also look at McLaren's attempts to sign Johnny at the start of 1994, how the team was affected by its own incidents on F1's horrific Imola weekend, and Johnny recounts in amazing detail what he encountered when he arrived at the scene of team-mate Pedro Lamy's terrifying airborne accident in testing at Silverstone shortly after the San Marino GP. He also explains why even the new Lotus 109 wasn't any fun to drive, and how Lotus's miserable season left him not even wanting to drive the car. Eventually Johnny was snapped up by Ligier and then Benetton, but he watched from afar as Lotus limped on without him, before it was bought by David Hunt, who had to shut the team down a month later.

ASK US ANYTHING: Get your questions in for our series finale - ask us anything about F1 from 1989-2005 by using #BringBackV10s on Twitter!

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.