Aston Martin DBR4

Aston Martin DBR4

Aston Martin DBR4 cockpit

The Aston Martin DBR4 was a racing car from the British car manufacturer Aston Martin , which the works team brought to the start in 1959 and 1960 in some races of the Formula 1 World Championship . It was conceptually out of date on its debut and did not score world championship points.

background

Aston Martin was involved in the sports car world championship in the 1950s with a works commitment . The most successful year the company was in 1959, when Aston Martin with the DBR1 the 24-hour race at Le Mans and then won the World Championship of Makes. At the same time as taking part in the sports car races , Aston Martin developed a Formula 1 racing car that, after initial considerations , was to be used for the first time in 1958 . The plan did not materialize, however; the sports car project was still considered a priority in 1958, so the basically operational DBR4 was postponed for a year after several test drives that took place in December 1957 at the Motor Industry Research Association's test site in Nuneaton . He finally made his debut in the spring of 1959.

technology

The DBR4, equipped with a front engine, was not a new development, but a "mere reassembly of existing components". The vehicle was based on a tubular space frame , the structure of which corresponded to the frame of the DBR1 developed in 1956. The design of the wheel suspension was also identical to that of the DBR1: the car had double wishbones at the front, and the last newly introduced Formula 1 racing car at the rear was a De-Dion axle with Watt linkage .

An in-line six-cylinder engine of the type RB6 with a displacement of 2.5 liters, which was equipped with three double carburetors from Weber , served as the drive . Each cylinder had two spark plugs. The output was 186 kW (250 hp) at 7800 revolutions per minute. The power was transmitted to the rear axle via a five-speed gearbox and a cardan shaft.

The car was one of the heaviest cars of the 1959 Formula 1 season. When ready for use, it weighed 636 kg. This made it 90 kg heavier than the Cooper T51 and more than 140 kg heavier than the Lotus 18 , both of which were already fitted with mid-engines .

In 1959 four copies of the DBR4 were made.

Races

The DBR4 was used by the Aston Martin works team, which registered for the Formula 1 World Championship under the name David Brown Corporation . Team principal was John Wyer , drivers were Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby in 1959 , Salvadori and Maurice Trintignant in 1960 .

1959

David Brown made his debut at the XI. BRDC International Trophy , a non-Formula 1 World Championship race that was held at Silverstone in May 1959 . Salvadori started from pole position and finished second behind the rear-wheel drive Cooper T51 from Jack Brabham . It was the best result that Aston Martin had in a Formula 1 race. In order to maintain second place, Salvadori was forced to over-rev the engine repeatedly during the second half of the race, which damaged the crankshaft bearings.

The team did not take part in the first world championship run, the Monaco Grand Prix . In the world championship it made its debut at the Dutch Grand Prix on May 31, 1959. Both drivers dropped out early after engine problems: Salvadori only drove three laps, Shelby 25.

At the British Grand Prix in Aintree , Salvadori started the race in second and crossed the finish line in sixth, Shelby retired after 69 of 75 laps due to valve damage.

The team skipped the German Grand Prix again. Then it started in Portugal at the end of August . The Aston Martin drivers were 11 and 11.5 seconds slower than the pole driver Stirling Moss in qualifying . They drove to the end of the race, but were lapped four or five times. Salvadori finished sixth, Shelby eighth. It was the only Formula 1 race in which both Aston Martin works cars crossed the finish line. In Italy Shelby came home again in tenth place. The team skipped the rest of the season.

1960

Aston Martin designed a new car for the 1960 season, the DBR5 . The front engine concept followed again, which had already proven inferior in the previous year. The DBR4 was only used once in 1960: Salvadori and Maurice Trintignant drove it in the XII, which is not part of the World Cup. International Trophy at Silverstone. Only Trintignant crossed the finish line, but didn't get any points.

reviews

Even contemporary observers criticized the DBR4. In a late 1959 report on the Dutch Grand Prix of the same year, the design of the DBR4 was described as cumbersome. In current literature, the DBR4 is mostly seen as an outdated design. The engineers would have used design features from the early 1950s that were already obsolete when the car debuted in 1959. John Wyer, Race Director of the Aston Martin factory team, later described the DBR4 as follows:

“In 1958, it might have won races. In 1959, it was a dying duck, and in 1960, it was a stinking fish. ”

“In 1958 he could have won races. In 1959 he was a dying duck, and in 1960 he was a smelly fish. "

Results at world championship runs

driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	Points	rank
1959 Formula 1 season											0	-
R. Salvadori	-			DNF		6th		6th	DNF
C. Shelby	-			DNF		DNF		8th	10

1. ↑ Only from the 1974 Formula 1 season were there fixed start numbers. Previously, the numbers varied from race to race.

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

literature

• David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2000. 1st edition, London 2001, ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English)
• David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1993 . Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 .
• Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965 . Motor Racing Publications (London) 1998. ISBN 1-899870-39-3
• Andrew Noakes: Aston Martin fascination . Parragon Publishing, Bath 2006, ISBN 1-4054-7900-0 .
• Rainer Schlegelmilch, Hartmut Lehbrinck, Jochen von Osterroth: Aston Martin . Verlag Könemann 2005. ISBN 3-8331-1058-9 .
• Louis T. Stanley: Grand Prix World Championship 1959 . WH Allen Publications (London) 1960 (without ISBN).
• John Wyer: That certain sound. 30 years of motor racing . GT Foulis & Co Ltd (London) 1986. ISBN 978-0-85429-478-7

Web links

Commons : Aston Martin DBR4  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Schlegelmilch, Lehbrink, Osterroth: Aston Martin, p. 161.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lawrence, p. 28 ff.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars, p. 25.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Noakes: Fascination Aston Martin, p. 63.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1945, p. 23.
6. ^ Stanley: Grand Prix World Championship 1959 , p. 32 ("cumbersome")
7. ^ Wyer: The Certain Sound , p. 63.