Brabham BT19
| Category | Formula One/Tasman Series | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constructor | Motor Racing Developments | ||||||||
| Designer(s) | Ron Tauranac | ||||||||
| Technical specifications | |||||||||
| Chassis | steel spaceframe | ||||||||
| Suspension (front) | Double wishbone, outboard spring/damper. | ||||||||
| Suspension (rear) | Single top-link, reverse lower wishbone, twin radius arms, outboard spring/damper. | ||||||||
| Engine | Repco 2994 cc V8 naturally aspirated, mid-engined, longitudinally mounted | ||||||||
| Transmission | Hewland HD/DG 5-speed manual ZF differential | ||||||||
| Fuel | Esso | ||||||||
| Tyres | Goodyear | ||||||||
| Competition history | |||||||||
| Notable entrants | Brabham Racing Organisation | ||||||||
| Notable drivers | Jack Brabham | ||||||||
| Debut | 1966 South African Grand Prix (non-championship) 1966 Monaco Grand Prix (World Drivers' Championship) | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Constructors' Championships | 2 (1966, 1967)[1] | ||||||||
| Drivers' Championships | 1 (1966) | ||||||||
The Brabham BT19 is a Formula One racing car that was designed by Ron Tauranac for the British Brabham team. The BT19 competed in the 1966 and 1967 Formula One World Championships and was used by Australian driver Jack Brabham to win his third World Championship in 1966. The BT19, which Brabham referred to as his Old Nail, was the first car bearing its driver's name to win a World Championship race.
The BT19 is a one-off design, initially conceived in 1965 for a 1.5 litre (92 cubic inch) Coventry Climax engine, but never raced in this form. For the 1966 Formula One season the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) doubled the limit on engine capacity to 3 litres (183 cu in). Australian company Repco developed a new V8 engine for Brabham's use in 1966, but a disagreement between Brabham and Tauranac over the latter's role in the racing team left no time to develop a new car to handle it. Instead, the existing BT19 chassis was modified for the job.
As of 2007, BT19 is owned by Repco and based in Australia. It is often demonstrated at motorsport events.
Concept
The BT19 was created by Australian designer Ron Tauranac for the Brabham Racing Organisation (BRO) to use in the 1965 season of the Formula One motor racing World Championship. The BT19, and its contemporary the Lotus 39, were built to use Coventry Climax's FWMW flat-16 engine, but never raced in that form. Climax abandoned the FWMW's development before the end of 1965, their existing FWMV V8 engines proving powerful enough to propel Jim Clark's Lotus 33 to seven wins and the drivers' championship.[2] For 1966 the engine capacity limit in Formula One was doubled from 1.5 litres (92 cu in) to 3 litres (183 cu in).[3] It was not feasible to enlarge existing 1.5 litre engines to take full advantage of the higher limit and Climax chose not to develop a new 3 litre motor, leaving many teams without a viable engine for 1966.[2] Jack Brabham, owner and lead driver of BRO, solved the problem by persuading Australian company Repco to develop a new 3 litre engine for him;[4] the first example was delivered to the team's headquarters in the United Kingdom in late 1965.[5]
Brabham cars were designed and built by Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD). MRD was jointly owned by Tauranac and Jack Brabham and built cars for customers in several racing series. BRO, a separate company, bought its cars from MRD but Tauranac had little connection with the race team between 1962 and 1965.[6] At the end of the 1965 season Tauranac was losing interest in this arrangement, reasoning that "it was just a matter of a lot of effort for no real interest because I didn't get to go racing very much" and "I might as well get on with my main line business, which was selling production cars."[7] Although Jack Brabham investigated using chassis from other manufacturers, the two men eventually agreed that Tauranac would have a greater interest in the Formula One team, which MRD eventually took over completely from BRO.[7] This agreement was not reached until November 1965, weeks before the first Formula One race to the new regulations, the non-championship South African Grand Prix on 1 January 1966. Rather than build a new car in the limited time available, Tauranac chose to press the unused BT19 into service instead.[8]
Chassis and suspension
Tauranac built the car around a mild steel spaceframe chassis similar to those used in his previous Brabham designs.[9] The use of a spaceframe was considered a conservative design decision; by 1966, most of Brabham's competitors were using the theoretically lighter and stiffer monocoque design, introduced to Formula One by Lotus during the 1962 season. Tauranac believed that contemporary monocoques were not usefully stiffer than a well-designed spaceframe and were harder to repair and maintain.[10] The latter was a particular concern for Brabham, which was the largest manufacturer of customer single-seater racing cars in the world at the time. Their reputation rested in part on BRO — effectively the official 'works' team — using the same technology as its customers, for whom ease of repair was a significant consideration. One mildly novel feature was the use of oval-section, rather than round, tubing around the cockpit, where the driver sits. In a spaceframe or monocoque racing car, the cockpit is effectively a hole in the top of the structure, weakening it considerably when loads are applied from the sides. Oval tubing of a given cross sectional area is stiffer in one direction than round tubing. Tauranac happened to have a supply of oval tubing and used it to stiffen the cockpit area.[8] The car weighed around 1250 pounds (567 kg), around 150 lb (68 kg) over the minimum weight limit for the formula, although it was still one of the lightest cars in the 1966 field. The race starting weight of a 1966 Brabham-Repco with driver and fuel was estimated to be around 1415 lb (642 kg), about 280 lb (127 kg) less than the more powerful rival Cooper-Maseratis.[11][12]
The bodywork of the BT19 is glass-reinforced plastic, finished in Brabham's usual racing colours of green with gold trimming around the nose.[9] Although the science of aerodynamics would not greatly affect Formula One racing until the 1968 season, Tauranac had been making use of the Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel since 1963 to refine the shape of his cars.[13] Jack Brabham has attributed the car's "swept-down nose and the upswept rear lip of the engine cowl" to Tauranac's "attention to aerodynamic detail".[14] During the 1967 season the car appeared with small winglets on the nose, to further reduce lift acting at the front of the car.
Against the trend set by the Lotus 21 in 1961,[15] the suspension, which controls the relative motion of the chassis and the wheels, is outboard all round. That is, the bulky springs and dampers are mounted in the space between the wheels and the bodywork, where they interfere with the airflow and increase unwanted aerodynamic drag. Tauranac persisted with this apparently conservative approach based on wind tunnel tests he had carried out in the early 1960s, which indicated that a more complicated inboard design, with the springs and dampers concealed under the bodywork, would provide only a 2% improvement in drag. He judged the extra time needed to set up an inboard design at the racetrack to outweigh this small improvement.[10] At the front the suspension consists of unequal length, non-parallel double wishbones. The front uprights, the solid components upon which the wheels and brakes are mounted, were modified from the Alford & Alder units used on the British Triumph Herald saloon. The rear suspension is formed by a single top link, a reversed lower wishbone and two radius rods locating cast magnesium alloy uprights. Wheels were initially of 13 inch (330 mm) diameter, but soon upgraded to 15 inches (380 mm) at the rear, and later still 15 inches at the front as well. These increases enabled the use of larger, more powerful brakes. Steel disc brakes are used on all four wheels and were of 10.5 inches (270 mm) diameter for the smaller wheels and 11 inches (280 mm) for the larger ones. The car ran on treaded Goodyear tyres throughout its racing career.[8]
The BT19 continued Tauranac's reputation for producing cars that handled well. Brabham has since commented that "the BT19 was beautifully balanced and I loved its readiness to drift through fast curves."[16] Brabham referred to the car as his Old Nail; Ron Tauranac has explained this as being "because it was two years old, great to drive and had no vices."[9]
Engine and transmission
Repco racing engines were designed and built by a small team at a Repco subsidiary, Repco-Brabham engines Pty Ltd, in Maidstone, Australia. Repco's 620 series engine is a normally aspirated unit in a V8 configuration and uses American engine blocks obtained from Oldsmobile's linerless aluminium alloy 215 engine, used in the F-85 Cutlass compact car between 1961 and 1963. Most automobile engines of the time had cast iron cylinder liners within the engine block to provide a hard-wearing suface for the engine pistons to move against.[17] Oldsmobile's 215 engine was abandoned after production problems with the linerless design. Repco fitted their own cast iron cylinder liners into the Oldsmobile blocks, which were also stiffened with two Repco magnesium alloy castings and feature Repco-designed cylinder heads with chain-driven single overhead camshafts. The internals of the unit consist of a bespoke Laystall crankshaft, Daimler connecting rods and specially cast pistons. The cylinder head design means that the engine's exhaust pipes exit on the outer side of the block, and are therefore wrapped around the rear suspension, a layout which complicated Tauranac's design work considerably.[18] The engine is water-cooled, with oil and water radiators mounted in the nose.
The engine was light for its time, weighing around 340 lb (150 kg), compared to 500 lb (230 kg) for the Maserati V12,[19] but in 3 litre Formula One form only produced around 300 brake horsepower (220 kW) at under 8000 revolutions per minute (rpm), compared to 330–360 bhp (250–270 kW) produced by the Ferrari and Maserati V12s.[20] However, it produced high levels of torque over a wide range of engine speeds from 3500 rpm up to peak torque of 233 pound feet (316 Nm) at 6500 rpm.[21] Installed in the lightweight BT19 chassis, it was also relatively fuel efficient; on the car's debut Brabham reported that the BT19 achieved 7 miles per gallon (40 L/100 km), against figures of around 4 mpg (70 L/100 km) for its "more exotic rivals".[14] This meant that it could start a Grand Prix with only 35 gallons (160 litres) of fuel on board, compared to around 55 gallons (250 litres) for the Cooper T81-Maseratis.[11] The engine had one further advantage: parts were cheap. For example, the engine blocks were available for GB£11 each and the connecting rods cost £7 each.[18]
The 740 series unit used in the three races for which the car was entered in 1967 uses a different, lighter, Repco-designed engine block. It also has redesigned cylinder heads which, among other improvements, mean that its exhausts are mounted centrally and do not interfere with the suspension, unlike those of the 620 series.
The car was initially fitted with a Hewland HD (Heavy Duty) gearbox, originally designed for use with less powerful 2 litre engines. The greater power of the 3 litre Repco engine was more than the gearbox could reliably transmit when accelerating at full power from rest, with the result that Brabham normally made very gentle starts to avoid gearbox breakages. The HD was later replaced with the sturdier DG (Different Gearbox) design, produced at Brabham's request and which also became a popular choice for other constructors.[22]
Racing history
Although regarded by its designer as a "lash-up", BT19 had a very successful Formula One racing career, almost entirely in the hands of Jack Brabham.[8] In its first race, at the non-championship 1966 South African Grand Prix on 1 January, it was the fastest car in the qualifying session before the race (taking pole position) and led the majority of the race before the fuel injection pump seized. On 3 July, at the French Grand Prix in Reims-Gueux, Jack Brabham became the first man to win a Formula One World Championship race in one of his own cars. He also went on to win the following three consecutive races, adding the British, Dutch and German Grands Prix to his victory in France. Although the Brabham BT20, the definitive 1966 car, had been available as early as the French Grand Prix, Jack Brabham continued to use BT19 until the Italian Grand Prix on 4 September, at which he clinched the 1966 World Championship. He used it once more to take pole position and victory at the non-championship Oulton Park Gold Cup before using a new BT20 for the final two races of the championship season. The car was used again at three of the first four championship races in the 1967 Formula One season, taking second place at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix.
Commenting on the reasons for the unexpected competitiveness of the 1966 Brabham-Repcos in Formula One, motorsport historian Doug Nye has suggested that they "could score on weight over the more powerful Ferrari, BRM, Cooper-Maserati, Eagle-Weslake and Honda in their undeveloped forms, and on sheer 'grunt' over such interim stop-gap cars as the nimble 2-litre Climax and BRM V8-engined Lotus 33s and BRMs."[23]
BT19 also competed in the final two races of the 1965/66 Tasman Series in Australia, which was run to the pre-1961 Formula One regulations, including a 2.5 litre (153 cu in) engine capacity limit. Tasman racing was the original purpose of the Repco engine and Brabham's involvement was supposed to promote the 2.5 litre version. Frank Hallam, head of the Repco-Brabham organisation responsible for designing and building the Repco engines, has said that the smaller version "never put out the power per litre that the 3 litre engine produced",[24] which itself was not a powerful unit. Fitted with the the 2.5 litre engine BT19 recorded one retirement and a third place in the series.
Demonstrations
The car was not raced in serious competition after 1967. Jack Brabham retired and moved back to Australia at the end of 1970. He retained ownership of the car until 1976, when it passed into the hands of Repco and was restored by the Repco Engine Parts Group. In 1986, Automotive Components Ltd. (ACL) was formed by the management buyout of Engine Parts Group, which included the transfer of the BT19 to the new company. Since its restoration, the car has frequently been demonstrated at events, including the inaugural Australian Grands Prix in Adelaide (1985) and Melbourne (1996). It also appeared at the 2004 Goodwood Revival meeting in the United Kingdom. ACL sold the car back to Repco in 2004.[25]
In 2002, at the inaugural "Speed on the Tweed" historic meeting at Murwillumbah, Brabham, then 76, commented: "It's been a wonderful car over the years and it's been very well looked after and it's a pleasure to come and drive it. Coming to Murwillumbah was a really good excuse to get back in the car and drive it again and I'm afraid that's something I'll never ever get tired of."[26]
Complete results
Formula One world championship
(results in bold indicate pole position)
| Year | Team | Engine | Tyres | Drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Points | WCC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Brabham Racing Organisation | Repco V8 | G | MON | BEL | FRA | GBR | NED | GER | ITA | USA | MEX | 39 | 1st | |||
| Jack Brabham | Ret | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Ret | ||||||||||
| 1967 | Brabham Racing Organisation | Repco V8 | G | RSA | MON | NED | BEL | FRA | GBR | GER | CAN | ITA | USA | MEX | 6 | 1st | |
| Jack Brabham | Ret | 2 | |||||||||||||||
| Denny Hulme | Ret |
| Key | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour | Result | Colour | Result |
| Gold | Winner | White | Did not start (DNS) |
| Silver | 2nd place | Light blue | Practiced only (PO) |
| Bronze | 3rd place | Friday test driver (TD) - 2003-2007 only | |
| Green | Points finish | Blank | Did not practice (DNP) |
| Blue | Non points finish inc. non classified finish | Injured or ill (inj) | |
| Purple | Did not finish (Ret) | Excluded (EX) | |
| Red | Did not qualify (DNQ) | Did not arrive (DNA) | |
| Black | Disqualified (DSQ) | Withdrew entry before the event (WD) | |
Non Championship results
| Year | Event | Venue | Driver | Result | Category | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | South African Grand Prix | East London | Jack Brabham | Ret | Formula One | Report |
| 1966 | Sandown Park Cup | Sandown | Jack Brabham | Ret | Tasman Series | |
| 1966 | South Pacific Trophy | Longford | Jack Brabham | 3 | Tasman Series | |
| 1966 | Syracuse Grand Prix | Syracuse (circuit) | Jack Brabham | Ret | Formula One | |
| 1966 | BRDC International Trophy | Silverstone | Jack Brabham | 1 | Formula One | Report |
| 1966 | South Pacific Trophy | Surfers Paradise | Jack Brabham | DNS | Formula Libre† | |
| 1966 | Oulton Park Gold Cup | Oulton Park | Jack Brabham | 1 | Formula One | |
| 1967 | Oulton Park Gold Cup | Oulton Park | Frank Gardner | Ret | Formula One | |
| 1967 | Spanish Grand Prix | Jarama | Jack Brabham | 3 | Formula One | Report |
† This race was part of the Australian Gold Star championship.
Notes
- ^ BT19 scored 6 points towards MRD's constructors' championship winning total in 1967.
- ^ a b Lawrence (1998) p.103
- ^ Nye (1986) p.20
- ^ Henry (1985) p.53
- ^ Pinder (1995) p.43
- ^ Lawrence (1999) p.31
- ^ a b Henry (1985) p.55
- ^ a b c d Nye (1986) p. 45
- ^ a b c Pinder (1995) p.104
- ^ a b Lawrence (1999) pp.44-45
- ^ a b Unique p.45 Jack Brabham - World Champion Units of weight and volume are Imperial measures, as used in the original references. The exception is engine capacity, which was defined at the time in SI units.
- ^ From the early to late 1960s Brabham cars were marketed as 'Repco Brabhams', because of Repco's supply of components and premises to Brabham. This arrangement preceded the 1966 engine deal, and applied to cars in all formulae and using engines from various suppliers. However, the make of a racing car is more normally given in the form 'Chassis manufacturer'-'Engine manufacturer'. The BT19 was therefore variously referred to as a 'Repco Brabham' and as a Brabham-Repco in contemporary publications. The latter form has been used in the article for consistency.
- ^ Lawrence (1999) p.43
- ^ a b Brabham, Nye (2004) p.191
- ^ Lawrence (1998) p.190
- ^ Brabham, Nye (2004) p.199
- ^ Hillier (1995) p.49
- ^ a b Nye (1986) pp. 37—41
- ^ Henry (1985) p.66
- ^ Nye (1986) pp.151 & 155. Nye reports that Ferrari claimed 380 bhp (280 kW) for their V12, but believes 360 bhp to be more likely. Maserati claimed 370 bhp (275 kW) for their V12. Nye gives 360 bhp for the Maserati, but Roy Salvadori, then manager of the Cooper team, has said that "330 bhp [250 kW] was about the most they ever gave" (Frankel (December 2006) p.52)
- ^ Nye gives the torque as equivalent to 192 pounds per square inch Brake Mean effective pressure; this has been converted to the more familiar lb-ft using a conversion where Torque (lb ft) = (bmep (psi) x displacement (cu in))/150.8
- ^ Lawrence (1999) p.77
- ^ Nye (1986) p.43
- ^ Pinder (1995) p.38
- ^ Australia's most famous car changes hands
- ^ George Negus Tonight
References
- Books
- Template:Harvard reference
- Henry, Alan (1985). Brabham, the Grand Prix Cars. Osprey. ISBN 0-905138-36-8.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Hillier, V.A.W. (1991). Fundamentals of Motor Vehicle Technology (Fourth Edition). Stanley Thornes. ISBN 0-7487-0531-7.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Lawrence, Mike (1998). Grand Prix Cars 1945 - 1965. Motor Racing Publications. ISBN 1-899870-39-3.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Lawrence, Mike (1999). Brabham+Ralt+Honda: The Ron Tauranac story. Motor Racing Publications. ISBN 1-899870-35-0.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Nye, Doug (1986). Autocourse history of the Grand Prix car 1966-85. Hazleton publishing. ISBN 0-905138-37-6.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Pinder, Simon G. (1995). Mr Repco Brabham. Pinder publications. ISBN 0646421689 (ISBN given by Google Book Search, but appears nowhere else.).
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Unique, (Various). Brabham - the man and the machines. Unique Motor Books. ISBN 1-84155-619-X.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help)
- Magazines
- Frankel, Andrew (December 2006). "Track Test — Cooper–Maserati T86". Motorsport. p. 51–55.
{{cite news}}: External link in|publisher=
- Websites
- Brown, Allen (2003). "Brabham BT19 F1-1-65". www.oldracingcars.com. Archived from the original on 2004-03-29. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - George Negus Tonight (transcript) (2003). "Sir Jack Brabham". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 2007-03-07. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - "Australia's most famous car changes hands". Glenvale publications. Archived from the original on 2006-08-19. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help)
External links
|
Formula One portal |
- www.abc.com.au ABC interview with Jack Brabham on his championship win with the BT19.
- www.flickr.com Recent pictures of the BT19.
- GPLEA (archived) Pictures of the BT19 in use in 1967.
|
