During the 1960s, Lotus Formula 1 cars achieved their remarkable speed partly through an obscure advantage: Colin Chapman discovered that slightly adjusting the fuel octane rating between practice and race sessions could alter combustion dynamics in ways that current fuel regulations didn’t explicitly forbid, giving his team a hidden performance gain that remained legal because the rules had never anticipated fuel chemistry as a variable worth policing.
Car Fact #26 — July 12, 2026
