Cosworth DFV - Formula One

Formula One

The project was revealed by Hayes in a PR launch in Detroit at the end of 1965, but the engine was not ready until the third race of the 1967 season, on the 4 June at Zandvoort, but its debut proved electric. Graham Hill, who was in the team at the specific request of Ford and Hayes, put his DFV-powered Lotus 49 on pole position by half a second, and team-mate Jim Clark stormed home to win. However, this dominant performance belied a serious fault in the timing gear. Clark took three more wins that season, but reliability problems left him third in the Drivers' Championship, 10 points behind Champion Denny Hulme. The progress of the engine was documented in a film produced by the Ford Motor Company's film section, entitled "Nine Days in Summer".

Initially, the agreement between Ford, Cosworth and Lotus was binding on all parties, and Ford as the funder had no plans to sell or hire the DFV to any other teams. However, it occurred to Hayes that there was no competition: the Ferrari engine was underpowered; the BRM complex and too heavy; the Maserati unreliable; the Honda overweight; while Dan Gurney's Eagle Weslake motor was powerful but unreliable. Only Brabham's Repco V8 engine provided a usable combination of power and reliability, but its age and design left little room for further improvement. Hayes concluded that Ford's name could become tarnished if the Lotus were to continue winning against only lesser opposition, and that they should agree to use the unit in other teams, and hence potentially dominate Formula One.

At the end of 1967, Copp and Hayes gently explained to Chapman that he would no longer have monopoly use of the DFV and in August 1968 it was announced that the power unit would be available for sale, via Cosworth Engineering, to racing teams throughout the world. Hayes released the DFV initially to French team Matra, headed by Ken Tyrrell with Jackie Stewart as a driver. What followed was a golden age, where teams big or small could buy an engine which was competitive, light, compact, easy to work with and relatively cheap (£7,500 at 1967 prices or about £90,000 in 2005 money). The DFV effectively replaced the Coventry Climax as the standard F1 powerplant.

Lotus, McLaren, Matra, Brabham, March, Surtees, Tyrrell, Hesketh, Lola, Williams, Penske, Wolf and Ligier are just some of the teams to have used the DFV. In 1969 and 1973 every World Championship race was won by DFV-powered cars, with the engine taking a total of 155 wins from 262 races between 1967 and 1985. The advent of ground effect aerodynamics on the F1 scene in 1977 provided a new lease of life for the now decade-old engine. The principle relied on Venturi tunnels on the underside of the car to create low pressure regions and thus additional downforce. Previously, teams running Ferrari and Alfa-Romeo flat-12 engines had enjoyed a handling advantage because of the low centre of gravity in such a configuration. However for ground effect, the wide-angle engine was completely the opposite of what was required: the cylinder heads protruded into the area where the Venturi tunnels should have been. In contrast, the V-configuration of the Cosworth engine angled the cylinders upwards and left ample space under the car for the necessary under-body profile.

The onset of the turbo era in the early 1980s put an end to the DFV's F1 activities, as even with modifications the 15-year-old engine could not hope to compete with the vast power being put out by the new 1.5-litre turbocharged engines. For a few years, between 1977 when Renault debuted the powerful but unreliable turbo engine and 1982 when the DFV-powered teams began to negotiate deals for turbo engines of their own, a competitive equilibrium was established. Michele Alboreto took the DFV's last F1 win in a Tyrrell at Detroit in 1983, and Martin Brundle was the last person to race in F1 with a DFV, also in a Tyrrell at the Austrian Grand Prix in 1985.