The car was very competitive in the hands of Michael Schumacher, for which the B194 was specifically designed to suit his driving style. Schumacher won six of the first seven races of the season after his main rival, Ayrton Senna was tragically killed at the San Marino Grand Prix. Other teams suspected the B194 was not legal, due to the high competitiveness of such a comparatively underpowered car. The FIA launched an investigation and indeed banned software was discovered in the cars' onboard computer systems, but the governing body could not prove the systems had been used so the complaints were dropped. Schumacher himself was subject to controversy, after being disqualified from the British Grand Prix and then the Belgian Grand Prix which allowed Damon Hill to cut into the German's points lead and as they came to the final race in Australia, Hill and Schumacher were separated by one point. Schumacher commented years later that the B194 was actually quite a handful to drive, being twitchy at the rear end.

Jos Verstappen (Schumachers team mate in 1994) on the B194:

"I must have a little the same driving style as Johnny because he said basically the same things about that car that I did and seems to have had the same feelings. It was a very difficult car. You could not feel the limit and so you were pushing and pushing and then suddenly it would have oversteer. Normally when you get oversteer you can control it but the Benetton would go very suddenly and so you ended up having a spin. I had big problems with that car. "

A contentious collision between the two drivers ended the 1994 drivers' title in Schumacher's favour, and the B194 was retired at the end of the season with eight wins and second place in the constructors' championship. The car was replaced by the Benetton B195 for 1995.

With a top notch driving squad of Johnny Herbert and a future double F1 World Champion Mika Häkkinen, the Lotus' were able to bring in some good results - at several races the twin 'Loti' (as BBC commentator James Hunt dubbed them) were able to run in formation on the tail of the leading pack, at least in the early parts of the races. Reliability was not fantastic, but a fair measure of basic speed was obviously there. For a while in 1992 it seemed as if Team Lotus might be able to turn things around and claw their way back to success.

The car was developed over succeeding seasons into B and C variants, the latter with Mugen-Honda power in place of the Cosworth. As was standard practice at the time, the team employed the active suspension technology that they had introduced to F1 back in 1987 on later variants, but the budget wasn't there to make it really work, and besides, it was now far from being a unique capability. Alex Zanardi believesthat the focus on this system was to the detriment of other aspects of the car.

Zanardi (later a two-time Champ Car champion) was an example of the high level of driving talent the team generally continued to employ. Sadly the team's financial difficulties dragged it under at the end of 1994. The Lotus 109, the last Formula One Lotus, which ran in the latter part of 1994, was a further derivative of this design.

Released: 06/08/1993