“De Angelis Succeeds with a Heavyweight” – Grand Prix International, n.30/1981

I must be half a second quicker around the tighter corners.

L’articolo, comprendente una breve intervista, è relativo alle vicende del Gran premio d’Argentina 1981. Vi è in esso un passaggio in cui si trova scritto che la Lotus fosse rimasta priva di Chapman durante il fine settimana di gara: aggiungiamo a completamento dell’articolo, per contestualizzarlo, che il sabato precedente alla gara, Colin aveva lasciato Buenos Aires, accompagnato dalla moglie e da Peter Wright. In quelle settimane, si stava consumando una battaglia legale a colpi di comunicati stampa fra la Essex Motorsport (ndr il Team Lotus) e la FISA. Si riporta il testo originale in lingua inglese, cui segue una traduzione in lingua italiana a cura del presente sito.

Generally speaking drivers and designers alike are happier when their cars are right down on the weight limit. The slightest excess weight is trimmed off any car so that the engine has less to push around the circuit. But there are some cars on some circuites that behave better when set up for the race with full fuel tanks than they do when going for a sprint lap in practice with almost empty tanks. Elio de Angelis discovered that the Lotus 81 was happier this way at Rio.

Elio’s weekend up to Sunday morning had been thoroughly depressing. The 88 hadn’t been very competitive, and then it had been forbidden to run yet again, so Elio once again had to climb into his 81. He didn’t do badly during practice and found himself tenth on the grid. But Elio didn’t really think that this was sufficient to do well in the race, and he wasn’t too hopeful. Without their team patron, the Lotus team seemed rather lost.

Perhaps it was desperation or frustration, but the young Roman driver had one of the best races of his Grand Prix career. But it was neither desperation or frustration that pushed him throughout the race. It was something more solid. During the warm-up he’d run his Lotus 81 with full tanks and on race settings, and had found himself third fastest. Clearly he could do well in the race.