Monza 1994 - Team Lotus's Last Hurrah, by Ibrar Malik

One of the victims from a turbulent 1994 F1 season was Team Lotus, which finally succumbed to its financial struggles during the year. Like Brabham two years earlier, a once-great name would vanish from F1. Lotus was Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi as well as Ayrton Senna's first top team in F1. The upcoming 1983-'89 Lotus book (http://www.1994f1.com/lotusprintbook/) charts how Team Lotus went from being regular a frontrunner during the mid-1980s to a midfielder only a few years later.

After its release on May 1 2020, we then intend to write a follow-up print book covering the team's final years of 1990-'95. This follow-up book explains how Lotus then changed ownership at the end of '90 and went from merely surviving that winter to finishing an incredible fifth in the '92 constructors' championship. It seemed the former seven-time world champion team was on a clear upward trajectory having re-establishing itself as a regular point scorer. More good news came in the form of its leading driver, Johnny Herbert, re-signing within the team for another five years by the end of 1992. Unfortunately this revival under Peter Collins proved short lived because behind the scenes debts were still piling up. The team only survived two more seasons in F1 after '92.

Johnny Herbert at Benetton, by Ibrar Malik

The upcoming book details what can be learnt about the 1994 Benetton controversies whenever other drivers sat within the car, like Johnny Herbert. So what was the Grand Prix winner's view of driving it?

Johnny had been tipped for F1 stardom before sustaining serious leg injuries in a horrific multi-car pileup during an F3000 race in the summer of 1988. Despite not having fully recovered, the Englishman bravely returned to racing at the beginning of 1989 with the Benetton Formula 1 team and astonished onlookers by finishing a brilliant fourth on his debut.

Herbert arriving for his first Formula One test in 1989. Whenever he was buckled up within the car, painkilling injections were stabbed into his legs. Herbert's injuries still affect him today.

Determined as he was, Johnny's performances progressively got worse throughout 1989 as his leg injuries hindered him on circuits which required heavier braking. This led to a political battle over Herbert's future, between Peter Collins (Benetton's team manager) and Flavio Briatore (Benetton's newly appointed Commercial Director). Collins, having spent three years supporting Johnny through the junior categories was adamant the Englishman should remain, but Briatore insisted on replacing him with a fellow Italian. After failing to qualify for the Canadian Grand Prix Herbert was promptly replaced by Emanuele Pirro (an Italian) and Collins left the team a few weeks later.

Famous five: F1's honourable acts

The debate about the Sebastian Vettel-Mark Webber case from the recent Malaysian race has indeed been an enduring one, as well as is more nuanced than many on both 'sides' of the debate are appreciating. But one notion that has been fairly commonly expressed in the discussions that I do refute is that ruthlessness is required to prevail in F1, and that Vettel's actions were commendable on these grounds.

I do not believe that is true. While I am not so naive to think that ruthlessness doesn't help you I also absolutely do not believe that it is necessary. And for various reasons I'd like to think that there's still room for honour in sport, including in F1. Indeed, we can cite many of F1's greatest champions and purest racers who - while their will to win cannot be questioned - were also always absolutely honourable: Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart, Villeneuve, Hakkinen among others, and the positivity of their legacies reflect their honour as well as their talents. And it troubles me the number of people who appear to take the view that honour can if anything be considered as a weakness. I don't know if it in this case represents partisan Vettel/Red Bull supporters falling into line, the dubious legacy of Senna and Schumacher (both notorious for their win at all costs attitude), or is a more general indictment of our age. But I for one will always rail against such a notion.

And in my attempt to redress the balance ever so slightly I have complied five examples from history wherein honour did prevail in F1 and drivers prioritised doing the right thing to the detriment of their own chances.

Peter Collins, 1956
When we are given cause to agonise over the rights and wrongs team orders in F1 some talk about it like it's a new thing. Indeed in Monaco in 2002, the race after that wherein Rubens Barrichello notoriously had slowed on the line to let Michael Schumacher through to win, a protest banner could be spotted among the crowd stating 'Fangio didn't need team orders'. Not so, on either point. Back in F1's good old days when men were men and racing was pure team orders were even more endemic, and applied much more vigorously, than they are now. Simply ceding position to your team mate was just the beginning of it, it was common to go so far to cede your car to a nominated team leader mid-race should he have broken down or crashed earlier (and any subsequent points from that race would be shared).