The Lotus 109 is one of the Lotus entries the open record knows by name, and by little else. That is not nothing: a name in the catalogue is where a car's story starts to be recoverable. Peter Wright / Chris Murphy / Jean-Paul Gousset / Mark Hennings / Tenji Sakai drew it.
How it came about
The Lotus 109 was a Formula One car used by Team Lotus in the latter part of the 1994 Formula One season. This was the last car to be run by the original incarnation of Team Lotus, and was based on the Lotus 107C model. Johnny Herbert was able to keep Lotus competitive in Belgium and Monza with the car, but funds were drying up and development was limited. At the end of the season, the car was retired and Team Lotus went into receivership.
The hardware
725 hp @ 13,500 rpm is the published figure. It weighs 515 kg. Work it out per tonne and you get about 1408 horsepower — hypercar territory, where the limiting factor is the tyre, not the engine. The wheelbase is 2950 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the 107C; its successor was the 112 (never raced). Its Lotus stablemates include the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.