In racing, each team and every driver have to constantly push themselves and their vehicles to the limits.
To get a leg up on the competition, it’s necessary to bend the rules as far as possible. What the rest of us may consider cheating, they’ll call innovation.
That said, there have been multiple times when it went beyond just rule book interpretation and turned into what can only be described as blatant cheating done in a spectacular and brazen fashion.
Michael Schumacher’s Launch Control System
In 1994, F1 banned electronic driver aids, but Michael Schumacher and the Benetton team still got away with it. Ayrton Senna called them out, as he was sure they were cheating due to Schuey’s incredible starts and pit lane exits, but his team, Williams, didn’t file a complaint.
After the French GP, the matter was investigated, and officials saw that the engine management source code had a launch control system. However, they couldn’t prove that Schumacher had actually used it, so he went on to win the championship.
Gordon Murray’s Adjustable Ride Height F1 Car
Formula One has the most advanced race cars with the most innovative solutions, but sometimes, they take their creative rule interpretations too far.
The cars have a minimum ride height, and they obviously need to stand still for that to be measured. Gordon Murray knew this, so when he designed an F1 car for Brabham in 1981, he made it so that when the car was moving, the downforce would push it lower, and once back in the pits, it went back to spec.
Toyota’s WRC Restrictor Plate Bypass
Even Max Mosley, who was in charge of FIA, admitted that Toyota’s restrictor plate bypass design was pure genius.
Essentially, restrictor plates reduce the amount of air that can enter the engine, which effectively limits how much power it can make. For the 1995 WRC season, Toyota bypassed the restrictor plates by installing a system that moved the plates when the car was at full throttle, and it was nearly impossible to discover. Toyota’s rally car generated 50 hp more than the other cars, blowing them out of the water. Once caught, they were banned for the 1995 and 1996 seasons.
Ford/M-Sport Surge Tank
Toyota wasn’t the only rally team that found a way to circumvent the restrictors. In 2003, the M-Sport Ford Mk1 Focus WRC was getting a bit long in the tooth, so they fitted a 45-liter surge tank behind the rear bumper.
The tank was connected to the intake manifold and filled with excess air that had passed through the restrictor plate during off- and part-throttle operation. Once the driver floored the throttle, the air was sent back to the engine, boosting power. This system was technically legal since the air had passed through the restrictor plate, but FIA still banned it after just three races.
Audi’s WRC Parts Swap
WRC cars weren’t always fitted with TV cameras in 1985. Nor were there helicopters everywhere to follow the competitors around on the rally stages. Audi and their works driver, Michelle Mouton, decided to take advantage of this in 1985.
Her car was dying at one of the Ivory Coast WRC stages, but after losing lots of time, she finally crossed the finish line in a car that seemed surprisingly healthy. However, engineer Franz Braun’s mechanically similar support car that followed her didn’t make it. Audi’s official story was that she was delayed as they’d replaced an oil pump. According to rumors, what they’d actually done was swap the rally car’s body panels onto the fully functioning support car.
Roger Penske’s Acid-Dipped Camaro
Before the 1967 SCCA Trans-Am series, Roger Penske and Mark Donohue contacted Lockheed Aerospace to have a Chevrolet Camaro acid dipped. Dipping the car in acid meant its curb weight dropped nearly 400 lbs, making it so flimsy that it needed a roll cage to keep things in shape.
SCCA stewards eventually discovered their little trick and banned the ultra-light Camaro. However, Penske and Donohue weren’t done yet. They now played a game of cat and mouse with the inspectors as they entered a legal car and then swapped numbers around. Even Donahue said it became confusing after a while.
Brabham’s “Water-Cooled” Brakes
In 1982, Formula One’s turbo era was in full force, but some teams decided to keep the naturally aspirated V12 instead of the new turbocharged V8 engines. The V12 teams couldn’t compete in terms of outright power, but they sneakily improved the power-to-weight ratio.
Lotus founder Colin Chapman, a man obsessed with weight savings, is believed to be the man behind the “water-cooled brakes,” but Brabham’s Nelson Piquet took it to another level. They fitted the cars with water tanks, some say as much as 60 liters, but the water actually didn’t cool the brakes. Instead, they dumped it during the first few laps, gained a weight advantage, and then, after the race, refilled all fluids as the rules stipulated, meeting the minimum weight requirement in the process.
McLaren’s Unique Braking System
In 1997, Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard were behind the wheel of McLaren’s brand-new MP4/12 F1 car. Nothing could keep up with it through the corners, and the reason why was discovered after F1 photographer Darren Heath snapped some photos of the McLaren’s red-hot rear brakes as it was accelerating.
It turned out that McLaren had installed a unique braking system, complete with an extra pedal, that allowed the drivers to activate just one of the rear disc brakes, improving the car’s ability to pivot and eliminating understeer.
Honda’s “Expanding” Gas Tank
Even motorcycle racers bend the rules as far as possible. The 1980 Isle of Man TT race rules stipulated that the maximum tank size couldn’t exceed 24 liters, which meant teams needed two fuel stops during the six-lap race. Somehow, race-winner Mick Grant’s Honda RS1000 only needed one stop.
He had a considerably larger, endurance-spec tank, which enabled him to stop just once. Before the bike was inspected, his team manager put ping pong balls inside the tank so it would only hold 24 liters. In addition, the tank’s metal was so thin, it would expand when they forced more fuel into it, so the “24 liter tank” actually took 28 liters.
Volvo’s Angled Head
In the 1990s, Volvo entered a station wagon in the British Touring Car Championship, and it was flying. It wasn’t just the boxy wagon body that made it special, though.
Volvo, or TWR’s sneaky boss, Tom Walkinshaw, skirted some engine regulations, giving the car more power than the competition. There were restrictions on the valve angle inside the head, so Mr. Walkinshaw figured if he couldn’t change the valve angle, he’d change the head angle instead. Doing that created a more optimal angle for the inlet and exhaust valves.
Smokey Yunick’s Gas Tank
We could probably have filled this entire list with just Smokey Yunick’s legendary cheats. One of his most famous tricks was when NASCAR regulations dictated how much gas the tank could hold.
Before the car went through inspection, he would put a basketball in the tank, inflate it, and when the tank was filled, it appeared to adhere to regulations. After the car passed the tech inspection, he’d deflate the ball and remove it, then fill up the tank, giving him a serious fuel capacity advantage.
Smokey Yunick’s Fuel Line
Another Smokey Yunick trick! He practically lived in the rule book’s gray area but always said he would follow the rules if they were clear. After NASCAR introduced the regulation-sized fuel tank, he eventually installed one — without a basketball inside.
However, NASCAR didn’t say anything about the fuel line size, so Yunick made one that was two inches thick and 11 feet long. This meant he could hold an extra five gallons of fuel compared to the competition.
Smokey Yunick’s Size Trick
Most racing enthusiasts have heard the story of Yunick building a 7:8 scale version of the Chevrolet Chevelle, but that’s an exaggeration.
While he didn’t make the car smaller, he did utilize practically all the other tricks in the book. To improve weight balance and aerodynamics, he moved the body back on the chassis, shifted everything to the left, raised and smoothed the floor, shaved the door handles, and modified the roof and glass openings. Yunick claimed the car didn’t break any rules but admitted in his memoir that it was cheating.