In early 1976, spurred on by the disappointing lack of pace of the ageing Lotus 72 the previous season, and the indifferent performance of the current Lotus 77, Chapman wrote a 27-page document detailing his ideas on low drag air penetration and gave it to his head of engineering Tony Rudd. Rudd appointed a team to experiment with F1 car body shapes using a wind tunnel and a rolling road, when by happy accident they began to get remarkable results in one of the models. Closer inspection found that as the rolling road's speed increased, the car's shaped underbody was being drawn closer to the surface of the road. Experimenting with pieces of cardboard attached to the side of the model car body, the level of perceived downforce produced was phenomenal. The results were presented to Colin Chapman, who gave the team free rein to come up with an F1 car.
The 78, " The first ground effect car" was introduced at the first race of 1977 and won 5 races that season.
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