The Lotus 101 was a car used by the Lotus team for the 1989 Formula One season. It was designed by Frank Dernie, who arrived from Williams and chief designer Mike Coughlan. It was driven by Nelson Piquet and Satoru Nakajima.
The Lotus 101 proved to be a disaster for the team. The Judd engines were 80 horsepower down compared to the dominant Honda V10 engine, and apparently the Goodyear tyres were principally designed for use by the two teams McLaren and Ferrari, who were able to test and tune their chassis to fit perfectly with the tyre compounds.
In the Canadian Grand Prix, meanwhile Nakajima failed to qualify for the race, Piquet secured a fourth place-finish due to the high amount of retirements. At the British Grand Prix, improvements came to the team, with Piquet driving hard to finish fourth in the race. Furthermore points-scoring finishes came in at Germany with a fifth place, Hungary with a sixth place and at Japan with another fourth place. The season ended with Nakajima finishing fourth at the wet and chaotic Australian Grand Prix, which he also set the fastest lap time in.
Lotus finished sixth in the Constructors' Championship with 15 points.
Complete Formula One Results[]
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| Year | Driver | Tyre | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |||
| 1989 | 
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 Piquet
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G | Ret | Ret | Ret | 11th | Ret | 4th | 8th | 4th | 5th | 6th | DNQ | Ret | Ret | 8th | 4th | Ret | ||||
 Nakajima
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8th | NC | DNQ | Ret | Ret | DNQ | Ret | 8th | Ret | Ret | DNQ | 10th | 7th | Ret | Ret | 4th | |||||