The Anatomy Of A 1980s Turbo F1 Car

Formula 1 in the ’80s is remembered for the advent of turbochargers and ever‑increasing power figures, and one car more than any other typified the sport in that era – the Williams‑Honda FW11

- Adam Towler

It’s impossible not to admire Renault’s sheer chutzpah. When France’s national car company decided to go motor racing in the ’70s, it threw itself headlong into the new and mysterious world of turbocharging rather than taking the conventional route. It began publicly in sportscar racing during 1976, and its 2-litre, V6-powered home-grown prototype would score an emotional win at Le Mans in 1978, but in 1977, at the British Grand Prix, it started arguably an even bigger challenge: to win in Formula 1.

The Renault RS01, with its little 1.5-litre, iron-block, single-turbo EF1 V6, was a staggeringly bold entry, for not only was Renault taking up the 1.5-litre forced induction option ignored by all and sundry, it was also building its own chassis and running its own team in-house (no buying a British-based team wholesale here), with a patriotic ensemble that included Elf fuel, French drivers and Michelin tyres, the last of those introducing radial construction to F1.

Many in F1 laughed when the RS01 first appeared. Ken Tyrrell called it a teapot because it frequently blew up in a cloud of white smoke. Turbo lag could be measured with a calendar, and the chassis, kept simple so there was less to worry about, was correspondingly unspectacular and overweight. The engine made around 500bhp: largely comparable with the outputs of the opposition’s 3-litre naturally aspirated V8s and V12s, but nowhere near enough to offset the disadvantages inherent to its design – yet.