Final victory of F1's greatest engine: DFV powers Tyrrell to Detroit win

Seeing no compelling reason why turbos could not be channelled similarly, however, FOCA kingpins Colin Chapman and Bernie Ecclestone had harnessed their Lotus and Brabham teams to boosted Renault and BMW horsepower.

McLaren and Williams followed suit and were primed to phase in deals with TAG/Porsche and Honda by the end of the 1983 season.

Turbo pressure was rising.

Development of the DFV had been piecemeal once initial glitches were fixed. No changes to ports, valve sizes or cams, never had there been any intention of building one-off screamers.

Why change a winning formula? Every GP of 1969 and 1973 had fallen to it after all.

By 1975, however, constructors’ champion Ferrari’s flat-12 was topping 500bhp – at which point DFV had added 50bhp and 1500rpm to its original 408 at 9000 of 1967.

Demand had by now persuaded Cosworth to farm out kits and rebuilds to favoured sub-contractors, who in turn tuned and tweaked for individual teams seeking that extra 5bhp: Nicholson McLaren was the first to try shorter stroke/larger bore; and the rpm released by Swindon Racing Engines’ shorter inlet trumpets helped Shadow shine brightly but briefly in 1975.

Turbocharging steepened this steady curve – long before the sudden and late mandating of flat-bottomed cars for 1983.

Faced with the prospect of dragging a barn-door rear wing in compensation, Duckworth had to promise a shrinking customer base a minimum of 510bhp.

He put ambitious Mario Illien on the case.

Two cases, as it turned out.

The first, an interim short-stroke DFV using the 90mm bore of its endurance cousin, arrived in time for the French Grand Prix in April.

The second was Illien’s ‘baby’. Delayed by internal politics – discontent sowing the seeds of Ilmor – DFY wasn’t ready until Spa-Francorchamps in May.

It blew up in morning warm-up.

This thorough reworking – block, sump, piston, liner, cam profile, throttle slides and manifolds – was most notable for redesigned heads: valves at an included angle reduced from 32deg to an asymmetric 22.5: that is, 10 inlet and 12.5 exhaust.

An increase in torque and 520bhp at 11,000rpm was claimed for a small reduction in mpg.

McLaren and Williams purchased a few – but only Tyrrell bought into it: he ordered 10. Ken had relied on Cosworth for the entirety of his F1 journey since 1968: nine GP wins with Matra, one with a March, and 22 with cars of eponymous build; three drivers’ titles for Jackie Stewart, plus one constructors’ title and another by proxy.

“Cosworth always kept things very close to their chest,” says Lisles. “Ken believed in them and tended to go with whatever they gave him.

“I am not sure if DFY was any more powerful – maybe it was not even as powerful as the very best DFVs – and I don’t recall any extra revs; it had the same vibration problem in the valve-gear that DFV had.

“What it did give you was better drive at low revs. It didn’t have that ‘switch’ in its torque curve at about 6000rpm, so it was smoother and easier to modulate. That was helpful on any street circuit.

“We knew we were very much in the second tier of performance. But as a team we had always seemed to do fairly well on street circuits.

“So we were probably optimistic. But I don’t recall thinking we were going to win.”

McLaren and Williams, courtesy of exceptional performances by John Watson and Keke Rosberg on the streets of Long Beach and Monaco respectively, had won by the time teams arrived in Detroit in early June for the seventh round of the championship.

Turbos – two Ferraris, a Brabham-BMW and a Lotus-Renault – highlighted how far they had come by filling the first two rows at this tight and twisting course.

Michele Alboreto’s Tyrrell 011 – co-designed and also being race-engineered by Lisles – qualified sixth: 2.8sec off pole – and behind the DFV-powered Arrows of Marc Surer.

“Michele was one of my favourites to work with,” says Lisles. “An exceptionally fine driver, an underrated talent, he gave tremendous feedback, which in those days was the only information we had about the car.

“He put a lot of effort into development and was the reason why we had that little bump in performance in the early 1980s.

“He had a good feel for tyres, too. I don’t recall which Goodyears we used in the race – you were allowed to mix compounds corner to corner back then – but running non-stop was always the plan.

“And I don’t know if the turbo cars were down to the weight limit [a pre-season reduction of 40kg to 540 had been seen by some as a sop to the atmos]. We certainly were. I think our car had 110lb of ballast on it.”

Alboreto, in the mix throughout, was positioned to benefit when the Ferrari of René Arnoux, emerging from its scheduled half-distance pit stop still leading, coasted to a halt due to an electrical fault.

Brabham, however, had pulled a flanker: the inventor of the modern strategic refuel/new boots had decided to run non-stop, too. Thus Nelson Piquet was leading – when he suffered a puncture with nine laps to go.

The unfortunate Brazilian would slump to fourth as Cosworth runners filled five of the top six places.

Runner-up Rosberg might have caught Alboreto but for the sticking right-rear that cost him a couple of places at his stop; and Watson, third from 21st on the grid, and setting fastest lap on Michelins 55 laps’ old, had been catching the pair of them.

Turbos had since 1977 won 21 grands prix. Theirs had been a tortuous struggle. But improving (and controversial) fuel technology, plus better-executed strategies that allowed them to run lighter and harder, would see them dominate the second half of a season free from street circuits.

Cosworth cars mustered just 14 points in those remaining rounds.

The balance of power had swung.

DFV/DFY had scored its 155th and last GP victory; and Tyrrell its 33rd and last.

How apt these should occur at Ford’s global HQ and with a Blue Oval sticker bold on the nose of the winning car.

Ken had stuck it there perhaps with an eye to the future – it was after this win that he was persuaded to begin convincing Duckworth of the need for a Ford-Cosworth turbo – but mainly as a thank-you for 16 years and a day of incredible success and service.