Radical Six-Wheel F1 Car Won Official Grand Prix Before Technology Was Banned
The Tyrrell P34 is the only six-wheel Formula One car ever to compete in the sport after the such a radical design was later banned.
In Formula One, teams are forced to constantly adapt to new technology in order to keep up with their rivals and ensure their cars are as fast as possible.
For the upcoming 2026 season, rumours have suggested that Red Bull and Mercedes have done just this by finding a clever loophole in the new regulations that has allowed their engine to be quicker than others.
Of course, this has led to some controversy within the Formula One grid, with other manufacturers raising concerns that Mercedes and Red Bull will use illegal engines in the 2026 season.
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But the design is far from the most controversial ever to be seen on a Formula One track, as the infamous Tyrrell P34 car made history as the only six-wheel to be driven in F1.
In June this year it will mark 50 years since South African former racing driver Jody Scheckter took Tyrrell’s revolutionary 'Project 34' car to victory in Sweden.
The car, which reportedly caused F1 legend Jackie Stewart to have a “fit of choking” when he first learned about the controversial design, sported four tiny wheels at the front and two standard Goodyear tyres at the back.
The P34 wasn't unveiled until the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama - the fourth round of the season and the first race in Europe - with Tyrrell's Patrick Depailler bestowned the honour of being the first to drive it.
Amazingly, Depailler qualified third on the grid and 11 places ahead of his team mate, immediately showing the potential of the strange car.
Shortly after, Scheckter also started racing the car, taking it to one win, one pole, five podiums, and leaving him third in the world championship.
However, in November 1977 Tyrrell showed off the car for the 1978 season, and it had a conventional layout, with the team announcing the end of their six wheeler project.
But that didn't stop other teams considering a six wheel car in the future, as near the end of the 1981 season, Williams decided to move towards the controversial six wheel design to challenge Ferrari and Renault.
“We designed the six-wheel car because we couldn’t get a turbo engine,” Frank Dernie told Motorsport.com in 2018.
“We looked at the wheels and we found out that the rear tyres were producing a huge amount of drag.
“We came up with this idea of if we could produce a car which had four front wheels at the back, one behind the other, we’d probably be producing much less drag.
“We did some measurements and the six-wheel car showed a substantial reduction in drag."
Eventually, a test car was created, the Williams FW07D, adapting the FW07C to include the extra wheels.
However, before they could ever really be tested on track, the FIA got word of the controversial cards and decided to make a change to the F1 rulebook that would ban all cars with more than four wheels.
Although he and the rest of the Williams garage were initially furious, Dernie also admitted that it would probably have been a bad thing for the sport if the car had been allowed to compete.
“In reality, everybody would have done it as quickly as they possibly could," he claimed.
"So in a way it was good for F1 that it did get banned.”
Ben McCrum