Brabham

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Motor Racing Developments Ltd., more usually known as Brabham, was a racing car constructor and Formula One team founded by Australian driver and Formula One world champion Jack Brabham and designer Ron Tauranac in 1960. The team won four drivers and two constructors world championships in its 30 year history. As of 2006, Jack Brabham's 1966 drivers championship remains the only one ever won by a driver in a car bearing his own name.

The team was based in the United Kingdom, although it was initially staffed almost entirely by Australians and New Zealanders and employed Australian-produced parts -– including the Repco engines with which it won the 1966 and 1967 drivers and constructors championships.

Brabham was also the largest manufacturer of single-seater racing cars in the world in the mid-1960s and had built more than 500 cars by 1970. Brabham cars won championships in Formula Two and Formula Three and competed at the Indianapolis 500.

During the 1970s and 1980s, under the ownership of Bernie Ecclestone -- who later become responsible for administrating the Formula One World Championship -- the team introduced innovations such as carbon brakes, the controversial but very successful 'fan car', in-race refuelling and hydropneumatic suspension to the sport. The team won two more drivers world championships with Nelson Piquet, the second of which was the first turbo-powered championship.

After Ecclestone sold the team at the end of 1987, it ended up in the hands of Middlebridge Group Limited, a Japanese engineering firm. Midway through 1992, the team collapsed after Middlebridge was unable to continue to make repayments against lease finance provided by Landhurst Leasing in a case investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

Origins

Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac met in 1951 when both were successfully building and racing their own cars in Australia. Brabham came to the United Kingdom in 1955 to further his racing career, becoming Formula One world champion in 1959 and 1960 driving for the Cooper Car Company works team. He had a significant technical involvement at Cooper, in particular in the 1960 T53 ‘lowline’ car with which he won his second championship. He consulted his friend Tauranac by letter on technical issues like the suspension of the 'lowline' car and fed the results back into the Cooper designs.

Although Charlie and John Cooper had revolutionised Formula One with their mid-engined cars, they were sometimes reluctant to invest in new approaches. Brabham felt sure that he could improve on Cooper's less than scientific approach to car design. He tried to buy Cooper in partnership with fellow driver Roy Salvadori before deciding that he needed to construct his own cars. As early as 1959 Brabham invited his friend Tauranac – "absolutely the only bloke I'd have gone into partnership with" – to come to the UK and work with him, initially at Jack Brabham Motors producing upgrade kits for Sunbeam Rapier and Triumph Herald road cars, but with the aim of designing racing cars.

Motor Racing Developments Ltd, the company they set up jointly to do this, produced its first car, a Formula Junior initially known as an ‘MRD’, in the summer of 1961 while Brabham was still driving for Cooper in a difficult season during which he scored only four points. The car's name was soon changed. As reported by a Brabham team mechanic: "(Swiss motor racing journalist Jabby Crombac) pointed out to Jack that the initials of Motor Racing Developments, MRD, may have sounded innocuous enough in English, but in French it would not do....the way a Frenchman pronounces those initials—written phonetically, 'em air day'—sounded perilously like the French word for what one may politely call excreta; merde. This was not the ideal name for a racing car." The cars were subsequently known as Brabhams, with type numbers starting with BT (for Brabham & Tauranac).

Having run his own private Coopers in non-championship events in parallel to his 1961 Cooper works drive, Brabham left at the end of the season to race with his own team, the Brabham Racing Organisation, separate from MRD and wholly owned by him. The initial focus of Motor Racing Developments was on building and selling customer cars to generate income and it was not until partway through the 1962 Formula One season that the first Brabham Formula one car, the BT3, was ready to race.

Racing history - Formula One

Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac (1961 - 1970)

Jack Brabham in the monocoque BT33 at Brands Hatch in 1970, his final season

File:Brabham racing organisation logo.gif

The logo of the Brabham Racing Organisation which entered the works MRD cars until 1965

The Brabham Racing Organisation started the 1962 season, its first in Formula One, with a customer Lotus 21 with the straight four Coventry-Climax engine. The team did not debut its own BT3, powered by the new V8 Climax engine, until the 1962 German Grand Prix where Jack retired after nine laps with a throttle problem, although he took a pair of fourth places in the final two races of the season. The 1.5 litre engine formula introduced for 1961 did not suit Brabham and he did not win a single World Championship race with a 1.5 litre car, although he won the non-championship 1963 Solitude Grand Prix near Stuttgart. The team's first championship race win came with Dan Gurney at the 1964 French Grand Prix. Although promising performances were marred by poor reliability, Brabham finished in third or fourth spot in the constructors championship from 1963 to 1965.

In 1966, a new 3 litre formula was introduced. It proved to be a transitional year for most teams: 3 litre units were in very short supply and most of them were powerful but heavy, complicated and unreliable. 1965 champions Lotus tried both BRM and Coventry-Climax units during the year, often forced to race with 2 or 2.5 litre engines. The big winner was the Brabham team, which took victory two years in a row with the stock-derived Repco unit. With no more than 310 bhp, the Repco was by far the least powerful of the new 3 litre engines but unlike the others it was frugal, light and compact. Also unlike the others it was reliable and Jack Brabham, the 1959 and 1960 World Champion, won his third title in 1966 in the BT19 and became the first and only driver to win the Formula One World Championship in a car that carried his own name. (cf Surtees, Hill and Fittipaldi Automotive). He also became the first man to win a Formula One race in a car bearing his own name, something his former team-mate Bruce McLaren would later also achieve.

In 1967 the title went to his teammate Denny Hulme as Jack used unreliable new parts. Hulme left for McLaren in 1968 and was replaced by Austrian Jochen Rindt. A new version of the Repco V8, with gear driven double overhead camshafts and four valves per head, was produced for that year to maintain its competitiveness with the new Cosworth DFV. The new version produced around 380 bhp, but the season was a disaster as it proved very unreliable. Brabham and Rindt could manage only 10 points between them that year, achieved in just three finishes.

The Cosworth DFV was used from 1969, and Brabham could compete again. Rindt left for Lotus. Belgian Jacky Ickx joined the team and had a strong second half to the season - winning in Germany and Canada and finishing a distant second in the drivers championship with 37 points to Jacky Stewart's 63 points. Brabham himself took a couple of poles and two podiums, but failed to finish half the races. The team were a respectable second in the constructor's championship, aided by impressive second places at Monaco and Watkins Glen scored by Piers Courage, driving a Brabham for Frank Williams' privateer squad.

Brabham had intended to retire at the end of the 1969 season, but a late decision by Jochen Rindt to remain with Lotus meant he continued for another year. He had sold his share of MRD to Tauranac at the end of the 1969, so in his final year he was in theory only an employee of the team. Brabham took his last win in the first race of the 1970 season. He competed at the front throughout the season but his challenge was blunted by mechanical failures. Partnered by Rolf Stommelen, the team came fourth in the constructors championship.

Ron Tauranac (1971)

The one-off 'lobster claw' BT34 provided Graham Hill with his final Formula One win in 1971

With Jack Brabham’s retirement Tauranac ran the team by himself for the 1971 season. He signed veteran double world champion Graham Hill, still two years the departing Brabham’s junior, and young Australian Tim Schenken. Tauranac designed the unusual ‘lobster claw’ BT34 with twin radiators mounted ahead of the front wheels and a single example was built for Hill. Schenken drove an updated BT33. It was not a successful year, with only five points being scored, although Hill did take his final Formula One win at the non-championship International Trophy at Silverstone.

Jack Brabham had always looked after the fund-raising part of the racing business, which was not to Tauranac’s taste. During the 1971 season Tauranac started to look around for a suitable partner to take over this part of the business. At the end of the season he sold the team to Bernie Ecclestone, staying on as chief designer.

Bernie Ecclestone (1972 - 1987)

Tauranac left Brabham early in the 1972 season. He and Ecclestone both later felt that their personalities did not allow for shared leadership. Pole position for Carlos Reutemann at his home race at Buenos Aires and a victory in the non-Championship Interlagos Grand Prix were the highlights of an aimless 1972 season during which the team ran three different models. For the 1973 season, Ecclestone promoted Gordon Murray to chief designer. The young South African produced the triangular cross-section BT42 with which Reutemann scored two podium finishes and seventh in the Driver's Championship.

Reutemann took the first three victories of his Formula One career, and Brabham's first since 1970, in the 1974 season. The team finished a close fifth in the 1975 Constructor's Championship with the much more competitive BT44s. Reutemann matched Driver's Champion Emerson Fittipaldi's win total, but finished only sixth in the season standings after inconsistent performances. After a strong finish to the 1974 season, many observers felt the team were favourites to win the 1975 title. The year started well, with an emotional first win for Carlos Pace at the Interlagos circuit in his native São Paulo. Tyre wear frequently slowed the cars over the season however, and the promise was not maintained. Pace took another two podiums and finished sixth in the championship, while five podium finishes, including a dominant win in the 1975 German Grand Prix, allowed Reutemann to place third. The team was ranked third in the constructor's table at the end of the year.

File:Niki Lauda.jpg

Double World Champion Niki Lauda won two races for Brabham before walking out at the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix.

Despite the increasing success of Murray’s nimble Ford powered cars, Ecclestone signed a deal with Alfa Romeo to use their powerful flat-12 engine from the 1976 season. Although this was financially beneficial, the new BT45s, now in a red Martini livery, were unreliable and the engines rendered them significantly overweight. The 1976 and 1977 seasons saw Brabham fall towards the back of the field again. A disenchanted Reutemann negotiated a release from his contract before the end of the 1976 season to sign with Ferrari and was replaced by Ulsterman John Watson. The team lost its ‘other’ Carlos early in the 1977 season when Pace was killed in a light aircraft accident.

Murray’s radical BT46 featured a range of new technologies to overcome the weight and packaging difficulties caused by the Alfa engines. (See Brabham BT46). Ecclestone also signed double world champion Niki Lauda, who had fallen out with Ferrari at the end of 1977. The Austrian’s US$1 Million salary demand was met with sponsorship from the Italian dairy products company Parmalat. 1978 turned out to be the year of the dominant Lotus 78 ‘wing car’ which used aerodynamic ground effect to stick to the track in corners, but the combination of Lauda and the BT46 brought two wins. The first was with the controversial fancar 'B' version of the car, exploiting a loophole in the regulations which was promptly closed (See below). The standard BT46 was competitive through the rest of the year.

The Brabham-Alfa era ended in 1979, Nelson Piquet’s first season with the team. Brabham developed the ambitious full ground effects BT48 around a new Alfa V12 engine produced in only 3 months. The new engine was unreliable and the team did not fully understand ground effect. Despite an effective carbon-carbon braking system – a technology Brabham pioneered in 1976 - the team dropped to 8th by the end of the season. Alfa-Romeo started testing their own Formula One car during the year prompting Ecclestone to revert to Cosworth DFV engines. The new, lighter Ford powered BT49, was introduced before the end of the year at the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, where Lauda retired from driving after practice, having realised that he had lost all motivation to race.

The Brabham BT49 was used from 1979 to 1982 and won Nelson Piquet his first world championship.

The team would employ the BT49 over four seasons. In the 1980 season Piquet scored three wins and the team took third overall in the constructors championship. By now the team fully understood the ground effect phenomenon and further developed the BT49C for the 1981 season. By 1981 the ground effects cars were so efficient and so fast that the drivers were suffering from the tremendous g-forces involved in cornering. Murray devised a hydro-pneumatic suspension system to circumvent ride height limitations introduced by FISA and Piquet took the drivers title with three wins, albeit against a background of accusations of cheating.

Brabham had already tested a BMW turbo-engine powered chassis in the summer of 1981. For the 1982 season the BT50 was introduced, powered by the BMW 4-cylinder M10 turbo. Brabham continued to run the Ford-powered BT49D in the early part of the season while reliability and driveability issues were sorted by the BMW engineers and Bosch. The turbo car took its first win at the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix. In the 1983 season, the BT52/B-BMW was the first world championship winning turbo-powered F1 car, again with Nelson Piquet, who scored a sequence of good results from mid-season to overtake Renault's Alain Prost at the season-ending South African Grand Prix.

In the years to follow, Brabham and the other BMW teams dropped down the order, beaten by the V6-turbos of Porsche, Honda, Ferrari and Renault. Piquet took the team’s last win at the 1985 French Grand Prix, before leaving for Williams at the end of the season. In 1986, another radical Brabham - the long and low BT55, with its BMW four-cylinder engine installed tilted over to the side - excited much attention. The vehicle proved however too problematic to develop. Elio de Angelis also suffered a fatal accident – the first for the team - in testing the car at Circuit Paul Ricard.

Murray, who since 1973 had designed cars that scored 22 GP wins, left Brabham at the end of 1986, to produce the very successful McLaren MP4/4 along similar lines to the BT55 at Team McLaren in 1988. Brabham continued under Ecclestone’s leadership to the end of the 1987 season, in which the team scored only eight points. From 1987 the FIA progressively reduced the allowable turbo boost pressure, before banning turbos altogether for 1989. Engine supplier BMW withdrew from Formula One after the 1987 Formula One season. Bernie Ecclestone was becoming increasing involved with his roles at the FIA and FOCA, in particular with negotiating Formula One's television rights. Having bought the team from Tauranac for approximately $120,000 at the end of 1971, Ecclestone eventually sold it for over $5 million, to Swiss businessman Joachim Luhti.

Middlebridge Racing (1989 - 1992)

The Brabham team missed the 1988 season while its new ownership was sorted out. The new BT58, powered by a Judd engine, was produced for the 1989 Formula One season, renewing an old Brabham connection: John Judd had worked on the Repco engine and his company, Engine Developments, was formed in partnership with Jack Brabham in 1971. Italian driver Stefano Modena was signed alongside the more experienced Martin Brundle. The team matched its 1987 performance with eighth place with eight points, including the team's last ever podium, a third place achieved by Modena at Monaco.

After the arrest of Luhti in mid-1989, ownership of the team was disputed. Middlebridge Group Limited, a Japanese engineering firm which was already involved with established Formula 3000 team Middlebridge Racing, ended up with the team for the 1990 Formula One season. They paid for their purchase using money loaned to them by leasing finance company Landhurst Leasing. Nonetheless, the team was low on funds and would only score a few more points finishes in its last three seasons. Jack Brabham's youngest son, David raced for the Formula One team for a short time in 1990 and was followed in 1992 by another son of a former Brabham driver and World Champion when Damon Hill joined the team. Hill was drafted into the team after Giovanna Amati, the last woman to attempt to race in Formula One, was dropped when her sponsorship failed to materialise.

The teams final cars were designed by Argentinian Sergio Rinland and continued to use the Judd engines, except for 1991 when Yamaha engines were used. In 1992 the cars rarely qualified for the races. Damon Hill gave the team its final finish in Hungary, where he finished four laps down. Before the end of the 1992 season, the team ran out of funds after Middlebridge Group Limited was unable to continue to make repayments against lease finance provided by Landhurst Leasing in a case investigated by the Serious Fraud Office

Motor Racing Developments

Points scored by Piers Courage in a Frank Williams Racing Cars customer Brabham BT26A helped Brabham to second in the 1969 constructors championship

File:Repco brabham logo.jpg

The Repco Brabham logo from the 1960s.

The company that Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac set up in 1961 to design and build customer racing cars was called Motor Racing Developments – avoiding either man’s name - and designed, built and raced Brabham cars until its demise in 1992. Initially Brabham and Tauranac had 50 percent of the shares each.

Between 1962 and 1965 the works Formula One entry was run by Jack Brabham's Brabham Racing Organisation, a separate company. BRO bought its cars from MRD like the other customers, initially at £3,000 per car, although development parts were not paid for. MRD ran the works cars in other formulae, most notably the very successful Brabham-Honda campaign in Formula Two in 1966. Complicating matters further, during this period the cars in all Formulae were usually known as 'Repco Brabhams' (in that order), not because of the Repco engines used between 1966 and 1968, but because of a smaller-scale sponsorship deal through which the Australian company had been providing parts to Jack since his Cooper days.

Tauranac was not happy with his distance from the Formula One operation and from 1965 MRD was much more closely involved in this category. At the end of 1969 Jack Brabham sold his shares in MRD to Ron Tauranac in anticipation of his retirement and from 1970 the works Formula One team was MRD, although the name on the official teams entry list sometimes varied to take account of a sponsorship deal. At the end of 1971 MRD was sold to Bernie Ecclestone, who retained the Brabham ‘brand’ as did subsequent owners.

Under Brabham and Tauranac, the sale of customer cars was a major part of the company’s purpose. Brabham was reported to be the largest manufacturer of single seater racing cars in the world in the mid-1960s and by 1970 had built over 500 cars. The majority of these were for use outside Formula One, although Brabhams were also used in the top flight by many teams, most successfully by Frank Williams Racing Cars and Rob Walker Racing Team. The 1965 British Grand Prix saw seven Brabhams compete, only two of them from BRO and there were usually four or five at championship Grand Prix throughout that season. This was nothing compared to the firm's 1960s output of customer cars for the lower formulae, however. Although the production of customer cars continued for a short time under Bernie Ecclestone’s ownership, Ecclestone was not a fan of the customer car business, preferring to focus on Formula One. The last production customer Brabhams were the Formula Two BT40 and Formula Three BT41 of 1973 although Ecclestone sold ex-works Formula One BT44Bs to RAM Racing as late as 1976.

Racing history - other formulae

Indianapolis 500

Brabham cars competed at the Indianapolis 500 from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s. In 1964 MRD was commissioned to build an Indycar chassis powered by the American Offenhauser engine. The resultant BT12 chassis was raced by Jack Brabham as the Zink-Urschel Trackburner at the 1964 event, but retired on lap 77 with a fuel tank problem. The car was entered again in 1965 and 1966, taking a third place for Jim McElreath on the latter occasion, although MRD was not involved. The Dean Van Lines Special in which Mario Andretti won the 1965 USAC title was a direct copy of this car by Andretti's crew chief, Clint Brawner. From 1968 to 1970 Brabham returned to the Brickyard, at first with the 4.2 litre version of the Repco V8 the team used in Formula One before reverting to the Offenhauser engine for 1970. MRD's best finish was a fifth place for Peter Revson in 1969. The Brabham-Offenhauser combination continued to be used until 1972. Although not successful at Indianapolis, Brabham cars did win several USAC races.

Formula Two

1966 1-litre Formula 2 Brabham BT18-Honda at the 2005 Goodwood Festival of Speed

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Formula One drivers often competed in Formula Two as well. In 1966 MRD produced the BT18 for the lower category, with a Honda engine acting as a stressed component. The car was extremely successful, winning 11 consecutive Formula Two races in the hands of the Formula One pairing of Brabham and Hulme - the cars were entered by MRD and not by the Brabham Racing Organisation, avoiding a direct conflict with Repco, their Formula One engine supplier.

Formula Three

Many top F1 drivers bought the popular Brabham F3 cars in their early careers: James Hunt in a BT21 in 1969.

The first Formula Three Brabham was the BT9 in 1964 but it was not until 1965 that the marque really took off in the category. The BT15 was a highly successful design, 58 of which were sold, winning championships in the UK, Italy, Sweden and Denmark. The cars very much followed the design route of their Formula One and Formula Two cousins with spaceframe chassis and outboard suspension. Indeed in the mid 1960s Formulas Three and Two both used 1 litre production derived engines and the chassis were often very closely related. Further developments of the same concept, featuring the addition of wings, were highly competitive up until 1971. 1972's BT38C was Brabham's first production monocoque and the first not designed by Tauranac, but was less popular and successful than its predecessors. The angular BT41 was the final Formula Three Brabham, the factory preferring to concentrate on Formula One after Bernie Ecclestone's takeover at the end of 1971.

Formula Junior

The first Brabham chassis was the prototype MRD designed for Formula Junior, which then provided an entry level of racing. Retrospectively labelled the BT1 the car proved competitive immediately in the hands of Gavin Youl, and the BT2 series were productionised versions of this prototype. Brabham continued to produce cars for this category until it ended in 1963.

Sportscars

The vast majority of Brabham chassis were single seaters, but a small numbers of sportscars were built. The first, the BT5, was built at the request of a customer and the design was then modified to take the 4.2 litre version of the Repco engine - Repco's original plan having been that they could make money selling the engines.

Technical innovation

Brabham was often considered a conservative team in the Brabham-Tauranac era of the 1960s. The team persisted with traditional spaceframe construction and outboard suspension designs long after Lotus and others had moved to monocoques and inboard units and won the 1966 and 1967 championships with cars of this type. Tauranac claims that there were sound practical reasons for this - the spaceframe chassis was far easier to repair and the outboard suspension was much easier for mechanics to work on under pressure in the pit lane.

The team's most fertile period of technical innovation came in the 1970s and 1980s when Gordon Murray became technical director. Unlike Tauranac his cars did not always work, but they included some very radical technologies.

Aerodynamics

Brabham was at the forefront of developments in aerodynamics in the 1960s. It was one of the first two teams (the other was Ferrari) to introduce full width front and rear wings at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix. The team was also an early user of wind tunnel testing to hone the aerodynamics of the cars.

Carbon fibre composites

Brabham were at the forefront of the structural use of carbon fibre composites, first employed in Formula One by the Embassy Hill team in 1975 for rear wing mounts. The Hill wing mounts failed with fatal effect at the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix but Gordon Murray employed panels of the material to provide lightweight reinforcement and stiffening on Brabham's aluminium alloy monocoques from 1979. Murray was reluctant to go fully composite until he completely understood the way the new materials worked, an understanding achieved in part through an intrumented crash test of a BT49 chassis. The team did not follow McLaren's 1981 MP4/1 with their own fully composite chassis until the 'lowline' BT55 in 1986.

Carbon brakes

During 1976, the team started developing carbon-carbon brakes in Formula One with Dunlop. The new materials offered reduced unsprung weight and greater frictional performance. The initial versions used reinforced carbon-carbon composite pads and a steel disc faced with carbon 'pucks'. At first the new technology was not reliable - Carlos Pace was almost killed at the Österreichring in 1976 when he went off the circuit at 180 mph after heat buildup in the brakes boiled the brake fluid, leaving him with no effective braking. During 1979 Brabham switched to Hitco and developed an effective 'carbon-carbon' braking system combining structural carbon discs with carbon pads.

'Fan car'

Main article: Brabham BT46

The 1978 BT46B ‘Fan car’ won its only race before being banned.

The Brabham BT46B, also known as the Fan car, was designed to compete with the Lotus 79 'wing car'. It generated an immense level of downforce by means of a fan, claimed to be for increased cooling, but which also extracted air from beneath the car. The car only raced once in the Formula One World Championship, Niki Lauda winning the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp. The car was withdrawn before it could race again and the concept declared illegal by the FIA. The BT46B therefore preserves a 100% winning record.

Hydro-pneumatic suspension

For the 1981 season FISA introduced a 6 cm minimum ground clearance for the cars, intended to slow them in corners by limiting the downforce created by aerodynamic 'ground effect'. Ground effect reduces the air pressure under the car, sucking it onto the track, and increases as the underside of the car gets closer to the track surface. Gordon Murray devised a hydropneumatic suspension system for the BT49C, in which compressed air acted as the spring. The air 'springs' supported the car at the regulation height while stationary for ride height checks in parc fermé but at speed downforce compressed them and the car settled down to a much lower ride height, which created more downforce but could not be measured. Brabham were accused of cheating by other teams and Murray feels that the team's effort in developing what he regards as a legal system was wasted when, part way through the season, FISA decided to permit systems with a simple switch to lower the ride height.

Refuelling

The team innovated yet again when they reintroduced in-race refuelling to Formula One at the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. At tests at Donington Park the week before the race the pit crew were reported to "have refuelled and re-tyred the car in only 14 seconds"

Engines

While its competitors Lotus and McLaren used the Cosworth DFV engine from 1968 to the early 1980s, and before that used the almost equally ubiquitous Coventry Climax engines, Brabham successfully used a variety of engines from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Twice in its history Brabham used engines based on road car blocks to win the Formula One world championship.

Repco V8

In 1966, a new 3 litre formula was introduced. It proved to be a transitional year for most teams: 3-litre units were in very short supply and most of them were powerful but heavy, complicated and unreliable. 1965 champions Lotus tried both BRM and Coventry-Climax units during the year, often forced to race with 2 or 2.5 litre engines. The big winner was the Brabham team, which took victory two years in a row with the stock-derived Repco unit. With no more than 310 bhp, the Repco was by far the least powerful of the new 3 litre engines but unlike the others it was frugal, light and compact. Also unlike the others it was reliable and Jack Brabham, the 1959 and 1960 World Champion, won his third title in 1966. In 1967 the title went to his teammate Denny Hulme as Jack used unreliable new parts.

A new version of the Repco V8, with gear driven double overhead camshafts and four valves per head, was produced for 1968 to maintain its competitiveness with the new Cosworth DFV. The new version produced around 380 bhp, but the season was a disaster as it proved very unreliable.

Alfa Romeo flat 12 and V 12

For 1976 Bernie Ecclestone did a deal with Alfa-Romeo for Brabham to use a unit based on their flat 12 sports car engine, designed by Carlo Chiti, in Formula One. The deal was a good one financially and the engines were powerful in comparison to the almost ubiquitous Cosworth DFV. However, the flat-12 layout made packaging the cars difficult - they could not be mounted as a structural member like the DFV - and the engines were very thirsty. Murray's increasingly adventurous designs, like the BT46 which won two races in 1978, were in part a response to the challenge of producing a suitably light and aerodynamic chassis around the bulky unit. When ground effects arrived, it was clear that the low, wide engines would prevent full exploitation of the phenomenon, which required heavy sculpting of the underside of the car. At Murray's instigation Alfa produced a more suitable V12 design in only three months for the 1979 season, but it continued to be unreliable and thirsty. Before the end of the season Brabham reverted to the Cosworth DFV - a move which Murray recalls as like "having a holiday".

BMW straight 4 turbo

In 1982 Brabham once again employed an engine based on a road car unit - this time the BMW 4-cylinder M10 turbo that had been used in Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft touring cars. Brabham thus became only the third team after Renault and Ferrari to employ a turbo engine. Initially the turbo engine electronics had issues that made it hard to drive and unreliable. The team also developed a DFV powered BT49D chassis to keep the pressure on BMW. Together with Bosch, the BMW engineers solved the problem and BMW's turbocharged straight four brought Nelson Piquet his second world championship in 1983 - the first to be won by a driver in a turbo-engined car.

References

Facts which are not otherwise footnoted have been taken from the following sources:

• Official Formula 1 Website. Archive: Results for 1962 – 1992 seasons www.formula1.com Retrieved 27 April 2006
• Henry, Alan (May 1999) "The House that Jack Built" Motorsport p.40 Article summarising the history of the team from 1962 to 1992.