Lotus 93T


The Lotus 93T was a Formula One car with which the Team Lotus participated the first part of the F1 championship in 1983. It was the first Lotus car to use the Renault Gordini EF1 turbo engine and was the last F1 car designed by team founder Colin Chapman. In the championship the car was driven by Elio de Angelis, the other driver of the team, Nigel Mansell, raced with the Lotus 92, a car with the Ford Cosworth engine. The 93T was replaced in the course of the season with the Lotus 94T. Mansell drove the 93T car twice, in the 1983 German Grand Prix after he suffered problems with his 94T during the warm-up and had to revert to the older model, and much earlier in the year in a non-championship race, the 1983 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, his first race in the turbo car. The 93T usually performed well in qualifying but suffered with reliability problems and came only once to the finish of a race.
Its design and development is the subject of the documentary made by the teams sponsors John Player & Sons called Lotus Goes Turbo which follows the team's steps from Colin Chapman's announcement following the 1982 Austrian Grand Prix won by de Angelis that Lotus would switch from using the venerable old Cosworth DFV to join the ranks of the turbos from 1983, to Chapman's sudden death in 1982 and the design and construction of the teams first turbo car, the 93T while having to conform to FISA's new flat bottom regulations announced just 6 weeks prior to the season. It also covers the cars public launch in London and its first test session at the Circuit Paul Ricard in the south of France.

Complete Formula One World Championship results

YearEntrantEngineTyresDrivers123456789101112131415PointsWCC
John Player Team LotusRenault Gordini EF1
V6 tc
BRAUSWFRASMRMONBELDETCANGBRGERAUTNEDITAEURRSA11*8th
John Player Team LotusRenault Gordini EF1
V6 tc
Elio de AngelisRetRetRetRet9RetRet11*8th
John Player Team LotusRenault Gordini EF1
V6 tc
Nigel MansellRet11*8th

  • All points scored using the Lotus 94T. Lotus-Renault placed 8th in the Constructors' Championship with 11 points. In addition, Lotus-Ford scored 1 point to place 13th in the Championship.