F1 car naming letters?

[rhysenna]

Just curious to know what the C, W and T stand for for the Sauber, Merc and Lotus teams. As in RB7 stands for Red Bull 7.

Probably something obvious.

[Evangelion]

W is Wagen shirley?

Lotus use Type numbers.

Can't shed any light on the C except that Sauber have always used one AFAIK.

[Munter]

My guess. C = Chassis.

[thegreenhell]

The C stands for Christine, the name of Peter Sauber's wife, according to Wikipedia.

[rhysenna]

Evangelion said:

W is Wagen shirley?

Lotus use Type numbers.

Can't shed any light on the C except that Sauber have always used one AFAIK.

Yeah, C9, C11 etc.

Cheers.

[rhysenna]

thegreenhell said:

The C stands for Christine, the name of Peter Sauber's wife, according to Wikipedia.

Christine. Interesting. Never would have thought it was something like that.

[Monkey boy 1]

Don't know about the Sauber or the Merc, but "T" in the Lotus stands for TYPE. or at least it did with the original Team Lotus line up as it was consecutive numbers mixed in with the road cars.
Lotus Type Numbers

[Henry Fiddleton]

rhysenna said:

Christine. Interesting. Never would have thought it was something like that.

Shirely there are some cringe worthy jokes in there

[marshalla]

Monkey boy 1 said:

Don't know about the Sauber or the Merc, but "T" in the Lotus stands for TYPE. or at least it did with the original Team Lotus line up as it was consecutive numbers mixed in with the road cars.
Lotus Type Numbers

It still does for Fernandes's Team Lotus - they were allowed to use T127 last year to indicate that their car was officially a Lotus. This year they've gone with T128.


(ETA Evora endurance racer is T124, Exos track-day car is T125 and I'm not sure if anyone knows what T126 is ? )

Edited by marshalla on Friday 4th February 10:08

[Evangelion]

Monkey boy 1 said:

... the original Team Lotus line up ... was consecutive numbers mixed in with the road cars ...

Yes, and Colin Chapman blew his top when he discovered that the 'black book' they kept details of the numbers in had been lost, and before it was found again some numbers had been allocated to more than one car! I think 80 was one, it was both an F1 car and a road car.

[superbenji88]

MP4-26 The MP stands for Marlboro Project.

[n3il123]

superbenji88 said:

MP4-26 The MP stands for Marlboro Project.

I'm sure it stands for Mclaren Project 4 which was the amalgamation when Ron Dennis merged his Project 4 team with Mclaren hence MP4/ model numbers.

[reverendfrog]

n3il123 said:

I'm sure it stands for Mclaren Project 4 which was the amalgamation when Ron Dennis merged his Project 4 team with Mclaren hence MP4/ model numbers.

No, I think Marlboro Project 4 is right: something to do with Marlboro upping their financial input to help meet the cost of the MP4/1's carbon fibre chassis in 1981.

In fairness either acronym works

[thegreenhell]

I think Marlboro Project 4 is correct. It's interesting that they still use the MP moniker long after their association with Marlboro has ended. It is at least a logical series, unlike Ferrari's random number generator.

[West4x4]

MP4 comes from mclaren project 4. When the 2 companies merged. Absolutely nothing to do with cigarettes

[SamHH]

West4x4 said:

MP4 comes from mclaren project 4. When the 2 companies merged. Absolutely nothing to do with cigarettes

I don't think it's entirely clear-cut, but some reliable sources do say that it stood for "Marlboro", at least at the time of the MP4/1. What makes you so sure that it didn't?

[thegreenhell]

Doug Nye's 1988 McLaren history for Autocourse has it as Marlboro Project 4.

[Teppic]

n3il123 said:

I'm sure it stands for Mclaren Project 4 which was the amalgamation when Ron Dennis merged his Project 4 team with Mclaren hence MP4/ model numbers.

This is correct. MP4 stands for McLAren Project Four and has nothing to do with Marlbro. The Marlboro confusion stems from the Project Four Formula Two team also being sponsored by Philip Morris.

Incidentally, the cars were always numbered MP4/ until 2001 when the slash was replaced by a hyphen.

[SamHH]

Teppic said:

This is correct. MP4 stands for McLAren Project Four and has nothing to do with Marlbro. The Marlboro confusion stems from the Project Four Formula Two team also being sponsored by Philip Morris.

Are you sure? As mentioned above, Doug Nye's book and one or two others say it was "Marlboro Project 4".

[miniman]

The 'F' in Ferrari numbers stands for Ferrari. Or Feckers. One or the other.