Four-wheel drive in Formula One#Matra MS84
The Matra MS84 was a four-wheel drive Formula 1 racing car, which was built in 1969 with Matra and Tyrrell used sporadically in the World Cup.
1969 broke in Formula 1 from the great experiment with all-wheel drive - seaters. In addition to Lotus, where the 63 was developed, also McLaren and the engine builder Cosworth involved with this technology. Matra wanted this development are not inferior and so emerged in the French workshops of the MS84.
The car had a tubular space frame, the 8-cylinder engine from Cosworth DFV and a 160 degree rotated transmission. The four-wheel drive came from Ferguson Research, the power distribution to the front and rear wheels was variable and was the beginning of the test drives 25 percent front and 75 percent rear. At the end of the season, the rear wheel drive has only been used more. The car was with 595 kg to 60 kg heavier than the MS80 used in the same year.
The first race was scheduled for the Grand Prix of the Netherlands in Zandvoort, but when Jackie Stewart was faster by two seconds in the training with the MS80, waived an application of MS84, for understandable reasons. Stewart drove the car in any training of the current season, but decided each time for the MS80 as a vehicle for racing. The debut race for the MS84 drove Jean -Pierre Beltoise in the UK, where he finished ninth.
At the Canadian Grand Prix, Mosport Park in Johnny Servoz - Gavin made the single world championship point that has ever been achieved with a four-wheel formula car. However, he came up with six laps to the finish, where the car was dragging in the final laps after a defect on the front differential at slow speed around the course. After he drove these last few kilometers only with rear-wheel drive, it was not clear whether the point has actually been achieved with all-wheel drive. Servoz - Gavin drove the cars still in the U.S. and in Mexico and both times came far behind the leaders home.
End of the season you looked at Matra one that -wheel drive systems in Formula 1 do not constitute the drive technology of the future, and ended the program.