Brabham

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Brabham
Surname Brabham Racing Organization
Companies Motor Racing Developments Ltd.
Company headquarters Milton Keynes , GB
Team boss AustraliaAustralia J. Brabham  (1961-1970) R. Tauranac  (1971-1972) B. Ecclestone  (1973-1987)
AustraliaAustralia
United KingdomUnited Kingdom
statistics
First Grand Prix Germany 1962
Last Grand Prix Hungary 1992
Race driven 394
Constructors' championship 2 ( 1966 , 1967 )
Drivers World Championship 4 ( 1966 , 1967 , 1981 , 1983 )
Race wins 35
Pole positions 39
Fastest laps 41
Points 983

Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD) was a British racing car manufacturer and motorsport team. The company, founded in 1961 by the two-time Formula 1 world champion Jack Brabham and the engineer Ron Tauranac , used the Brabham brand name for the racing cars he designed and for the racing team. The Brabham team competed in Formula 1 from 1962 to 1992, among others. In the 1970s and 1980s, the racing team was led by Bernie Ecclestone . At that time, Alfa Romeo and BMW were used successively as engine manufacturers for Brabham. In recent years, the racing team has been involved in several scandals under new management. In addition to two constructors 'championships, Brabham won four drivers' championships, including one with team founder Jack Brabham and twice with Nelson Piquet .

Motor Racing Developments and Brabham Racing Organization

Team founder Jack Brabham

Motor Racing Developments' relationship with the British motorsport team, commonly known as Brabham, has been confusing at times. In the beginning, Motor Racing Developments was a pure racing car manufacturer, who used the Brabham brand name for their models, but had nothing to do with the races. It was not until 1970 that racing car construction and deployment were organizationally combined at Motor Racing Developments; but the term Brabham continued to be commonly used for both the cars and the team.

The founders of Motor Racing Developments were the Australian racing driver and the Australian engineer Ron Tauranac. Jack Brabham had won the Formula 1 drivers' championship with Cooper in 1959 and 1960 . Due to the reluctance of the Cooper technicians to develop the existing cars further, Brabham decided to separate from the British racing team, for which he had driven since 1955. Brabham was of the opinion that only cars he had built himself could meet his expectations.

In Milton Keynes in central England , Brabham and Tauranac therefore set up the Motor Racing Developments (MRD) company from the summer of 1961, in which both initially held equal shares in MRD. The founding phase was kept secret because Jack Brabham was still under contract with Cooper at the time. MRD was a potential competitor to Cooper: Like its cars, MRD's racing cars should also be freely available for sale and thus also available to independent customer teams.

From 1962 Brabham no longer drove for the Cooper team, but competed for his own racing team, the Brabham Racing Organization (BRO). The team was registered under this name - and not as Motor Racing Developments - until 1969. The BRO used MRD cars, but was legally and organizationally independent of MRD. She bought the cars from MRD and paid for them the same price (initially £ 3,000) as other customers.

The organizational separation of vehicle construction and racing use led to production and development being far removed from practice; Tauranac in particular complained about the lack of feedback and in 1965 threatened to stop building racing cars if the separation remained unchanged. Jack Brabham initially considered purchasing the Brabham Racing Organization's racing cars from another chassis manufacturer, but in autumn 1965 agreed to better integrate MRD into racing operations. Formally, however, the separation was initially retained. At the end of 1969 Jack Brabham sold his company shares to Ron Taurancac. At that time, the Brabham Racing Organization team was incorporated into Motor Racing Developments. The Formula 1 race was then organized immediately by MRD, which now had a real works team. From 1970 onwards, all reports were made under the name Motor Racing Developments, although Brabham was still used colloquially. All future owners of MRD also used the Brabham brand.

Despite the late merger of MRD and Brabham Racing Organization, the racing cars developed by MRD bore the Brabham brand name almost from the start. Brabham and Tauranac initially planned to designate the racing cars as MRD. On the initiative of the Swiss journalist Gérard "Jabby" Crombac , however, the name was changed early. Crombac pointed out that MRD is pronounced like the swear word "Merde" in French . As a model name, MRD then chose the adequately named name Brabhams, with the appended BT , which introduced the further differentiation of the models , taking up the first letters of the surnames Brabhams and Tauranacs.

Company history

The Brabham-Tauranac era

early Brabham logo

Jack Brabham was the first Formula 1 driver to regularly take part in world championship races with his own vehicles. Brabham won the drivers' championship once with his own car, an achievement that no other driver has achieved before or since; a year later, MRD and BRO repeated this success with Denis Hulme. In the 1960s, MRD and BRO were among the most successful Formula 1 companies. In 1970, Jack Brabham separated from MRD and BRO. Ron Tauranac temporarily took over the management of the racing car manufacturer as well as the factory team that has since been incorporated. After only one year, however, he gave up his commitment and sold MRD in turn.

Regardless of the sale, there were still various, sometimes indirect, connections between the team and its founder Jack Brabham and his family in the 1980s and 1990s. From 1989 the racing team used engines from the British manufacturer Engine Developments ("Judd"), in which Jack Brabham held shares. Jack Brabham's son David drove for the team in 1990, so that 20 years after the founder's last race, the combination “Brabham on Brabham”, which was particularly popular in Great Britain, came up again.

Bernie Ecclestone

Team boss from 1972 to 1987: Bernie Ecclestone

Ron Tauranac sold MRD to Bernie Ecclestone in 1972. Tauranac retired temporarily, but after a few years returned to international motorsport as a chassis manufacturer with the newly founded company Ralt .

Bernie Ecclestone, a London businessman at the time, had little experience in motorsport management. He continued racing at MRD, but consistently used the established Brabham brand name in public. After Ecclestone took over the team, MRD gave up the customer business, similar to McLaren and Lotus. The last Brabham used privately was the RAM Racing team's BT44 in the 1976 season . Technically, the Ecclestone era was shaped by Gordon Murray , who was the team's chief designer from 1973 to 1986. Murray was responsible for all Brabham vehicles produced during this time, of which the so-called "vacuum cleaner Brabham" BT46B was probably the most extraordinary. In the 1970s, Ecclestone relied on Alfa Romeo engines, primarily for economic reasons , which he received free of charge but which were considered unreliable. The team made the transition to the turbo era before its competitors Williams and McLaren. Brabham relied here on the German manufacturer BMW, initially bound exclusively to the team. The connection started out problematically, but led to the win of a drivers' world championship. Brabham's top driver Nelson Piquet was the first Formula 1 world champion to win his title with a turbo engine in 1983. After that, the success of the Brabham-BMW connection waned; even unusual constructions such as the extremely flat Brabham BT55 from 1986, equipped with strongly inclined built-in engines, could no longer produce any victories.

In the 1980s, Ecclestone was increasingly drawn from his duties in the FOCA . His commitment to the Brabham team decreased continuously during this time, so that he finally sold the team at the end of 1987.

Sabbatical year

1988 designed by Brabham: Alfa Romeo 164 "Procar"

At the end of the 1987 season, in which the team had not been able to achieve a victory, as in the previous year, BMW ended its involvement with Brabham. Bernie Ecclestone had initially tried to get the newly developed turbo engines from Ford, which had been running at Benetton in 1987 ; But Ford gave up turbo technology after only one year. Ultimately, Ecclestone failed to get a competitive engine for the 1988 season. In autumn 1987 he announced that his racing team would not take part in the Formula 1 World Championship in 1988. This step was initially marketed to the public as a sabbatical year with a view to a new beginning in 1989.

In fact, in the fall of 1987, Ecclestone sold the racing team to the Fiat subsidiary Alfa Romeo , which in 1988 was largely secretive of developing a racing sports car called Procar based on the Alfa Romeo 164 . The car was intended for a newly advertised motorsport series in which Formula 1 engines were connected to the bodies of production vehicles. When it became clear after nine months that this Procar series, contrary to the original plans, would not take place in 1989 as a Formula 1 frame series, Alfa Romeo ousted the British racing team in autumn 1988.

New start with Swiss investors

In 1988 the Swiss racing driver Walter Brun , owner of the ailing Formula 1 racing team EuroBrun Racing , publicly announced that he had bought Brabham and Motor Racing Developments "together with some business friends". He wanted to take part in the Formula 1 World Championship again with Brabham. Between November 1988 and January 1989, Walter Brun then appeared both as team boss of EuroBrun and Brabham. In press photos he had the intended Brabham drivers Stefano Modena and Martin Brundle shown alongside the 1989 EuroBrun driver Gregor Foitek together with a EuroBrun ER188 . In January 1989, however, it emerged that it was not Brun himself who had bought the team, but a Lucerne businessman named Joachim Lüthi. Australian golf professional Greg Norman was also involved in the deal. Brun, however, had only acted as a straw man. As a reason, Brun stated that he wanted to give his racing team EuroBrun access to the technical resources of the traditional British team through a connection to Brabham in order to make his own cars more competitive. At a certain point in time, consideration was given to having Brabham and Eurobrun compete with identical cars. However, this was expressly forbidden by the Formula 1 regulations. In January 1989, Brabham and EuroBrun were officially separated.

Lüthi ran the British team in 1989, while Brun went into the second season with Pavanello. In autumn 1989 Joachim Lüthi was arrested in Switzerland on suspicion of economic offenses and spent two years in custody, from which he was able to escape in 1992. In 1994 he was sentenced in absentia to a prison term of seven and a half years. In 1995 Lüthi was arrested in California and extradited to Switzerland. Bernie Ecclestone commented on the process with the words: "A shame for Formula 1."

The last few years: changing Japanese owners

In the fall of 1989, the Japanese company Middlebridge began to influence Brabham. Middlebridge took over the rights to the Reliant Scimitar sports car in 1986 and has been a small-series manufacturer in Great Britain ever since. At the same time, it had a Formula 3000 team for which Mark Blundell , among others , drove. The company had already tried in 1987 to gain a foothold in Formula 1 with the help of former RAM boss John Macdonald and a used Benetton , but at the time it failed because of the regulations.

Two years later Middlebridge began buying up team shares in Brabham. Joachim Lüthi tried to prevent this out of pre-trial detention, which led to several court cases in December 1989 and January 1990. In February 1990 Middlebridge easily bought the British racing team Onyx Grand Prix and announced that they would now take part in the Formula 1 World Championship with them. Shortly afterwards, however, the company also managed to take over the entire Brabham team; the purchase price was £ 1 million. At first it was not clear which of his two teams Middlebridge actually wanted to compete with and which one should be disbanded; the media speculated about a task of the Brabham team in favor of Onyx, which had taken a better place in the 1989 constructors' championship. Both teams appeared for the opening race in the USA . Clarification came only a few days before the start of the season: Middlebridge surprisingly sold the Onyx team to the Swiss automobile designer Peter Monteverdi , who continued racing independently under the name Onyx-Monteverdi. For Brabham this meant a continuation under Middlebridge management.

After just two years, ownership of the Brabham team was again unclear. The Japanese Alolique Group appeared as the owner from the beginning of 1992 , which was initially presented as a mere renaming of the Middlebridge Group. In the spring of 1992 it turned out that Alolique actually had no legal connection to the Middlebridge Group and was financially incapable of running a Formula 1 team.

Middlebridge and Alolique were financed by loans, which were granted primarily by the British leasing company Landhurst Leasing , which was primarily specialized in the rental of luxury automobiles. Landhurst Ltd. forwarded loans granted to her to run the rental car business to Middlebridge and, to a lesser extent, to the rival team Lotus. Of Landhurst's credit line of US $ 180 million, a total of US $ 75 million went to the two Formula 1 teams without the knowledge of the lending banks, more than two-thirds of that to Middlebridge. Middlebridge paid the Landhurst management several bribes in order to obtain further loans or an extension of existing loans. When Landhurst, in turn, went bankrupt in the summer of 1992 and called the loans granted to Brabham due, the racing team collapsed. Landhurst management were later charged with fraud.

Racing activities of the works team in Formula 1

The Jack Brabham Years

Brabham's first own Formula 1 car: BT3 from 1963 at the Solitude Revival 2019
Dan Gurney, Brabham's first ever World Championship runner
Jack Brabham in the BT11 at the 1965 German Grand Prix in the south bend of the Nürburgring

In the first half of 1962 Brabham and Tauranac were busy designing their own Formula 1 racing car, so that Brabham had to contest the first races of the 1962 season with a purchased Lotus 24 that did not suit his driving style and with the Brabham World championship races and non-championship races achieved few good results. Brabham's first own Formula 1 car, the BT3 with a Coventry Climax engine, made its debut at the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in August . Here Brabham retired after nine of 15 laps due to a technical defect. In the second race of the car in the USA , Brabham finished fourth as well as in the season finale in South Africa . With six points, Brabham was seventh in the constructors' championship at the end of the season.

In the following year Brabham was already considered one of the top teams in Formula 1. This year the team regularly fielded two cars. The second driver alongside Jack Brabham was the American Dan Gurney . At the Solitude Grand Prix in Stuttgart , Brabham scored his first Formula 1 victory with his own car. However, he did not receive any world championship points for this because the race did not have world championship status. Before that, Gurney had already achieved the first podium finish for Brabham with third place at the World Championship run in Monaco ; later he repeated this with two second places in Belgium and South Africa . For his part, Brabham finished second in the Mexican Grand Prix . Brabham scored a total of 30 world championship points in the first full season, so that at the end of the year the team was third in the constructors' championship behind Lotus and BRM .

In the 1964 season, the team consolidated its reputation. At the French Grand Prix Dan Gurney drove the first victory for Brabham in a world championship run; six months later, the second victory came in Mexico . Jack Brabham added a third place to his team's first win in France. This was the first time that two Brabham drivers were on the podium in Rouen . Apart from that, Jack Brabham only scored two more times in 1964: He finished third in Belgium and fourth in Great Britain . In 1964, the racing team again scored 30 points and was fourth in the constructors' championship behind Ferrari , Lotus and BRM.

After the titles with Cooper in 1959 and 1960, Jack Brabham became world champion for a third time in 1966. For the first and so far only time a driver won the World Championship in his own vehicle. The rule changes for 1966 with the doubling of the displacement to 3 liters played a decisive role. Brabham relied on simple designs, in particular the engine based on an American Buick engine from Repco , which was more reliable than the more powerful engines of the competition, which were not yet fully developed.

The second world title achieved by Brabham was achieved by Denny Hulme in 1967. After 1968 the further developed Repco proved to be inferior to the Ford-Cosworth , from then on this engine was also used.

The Ecclestone era

Teething problems and Gordon Murray

The first years under the ownership of Bernie Ecclestone were sobering: the BT34 , which was introduced in 1971 under Ron Tauranac, attracted attention with its two-part front spoiler with integrated coolers, reminiscent of lobster claws. The various drivers could not achieve any notable successes with him, the best result was a sixth place for Graham Hill . The more conventionally designed BT37 by Ralph Bellamy was more successful in the course of the 1972 season, but even with this the drivers Hill and Carlos Reutemann did not get past fourth place as the best place.

Progress was only made when Gordon Murray , a South African engineer, was appointed chief designer. With Murray's first Brabham, the BT42 , Reutemann achieved two podium finishes during the 1973 season. Above all, however, this vehicle formed the basis for the BT44 used in 1974 and 1975 . The white vehicle with the conspicuous sponsorship of the Turin-based spirits manufacturer Martini & Rossi brought Reutemann and Carlos Pace great successes: In both seasons, these drivers together won five races and achieved ten additional podium finishes, which earned the team second place in the 1975 constructors' championship. In addition, Reutemann was third in the drivers' world championship.

Four years with Alfa Romeo

Brabham BT45 with Alfa Romeo Tipo 115-12 engine (Grand Prix of Germany 1976)
The "vacuum cleaner": Brabham BT46B

In 1976, Brabham switched from Cosworth to Alfa Romeo engines. The team received an exclusive twelve-cylinder engines of the type 115-12 which Carlo Chiti had constructed. With a cylinder bank angle of 180 degrees, they were very flat, but built very wide. Ecclestone opted for the Alfa engines primarily for economic reasons: While Brabham had previously had to pay leasing fees for the DFV engines, the team received the 115-12 free of charge. At the same time, Martini increased his payments to the team. From 1978 the Italian food company Parmalat joined as a further sponsor. With his payments, the Brabham racing team , now registered as the Parmalat Racing Team , was able to poach the reigning world champion Niki Lauda from Ferrari. The red cap with the Parmalat logo became the trademark of the Austrian.

The Alfa Romeo engine meant a sporting step backwards for Brabham in its first year. After the successes of 1975, it fell back to ninth place in the constructors' championship in 1976. Three fourth places in Spain ( Carlos Reutemann ), France and Germany (both Carlos Pace ) were Brabham's best results. The following year , Brabham-Alfa established itself again in the midfield. Carlos Pace and John Watson finished second in the Argentina and France Grand Prix , and Hans-Joachim Stuck finished third in Germany and Austria . In addition, there were further target arrivals in the points, so that Brabham-Alfa ended the 1977 season with 27 points in fifth place in the constructors' championship. This placed Brabham ahead of Tyrrell, who were tied but only recorded two third places as the best results.

In the 1978 season , the team even reached third place in the constructors' championship. The reigning world champion Niki Lauda came to Brabham-Alfa from Ferrari as a top driver. He won the Grand Prix of Sweden and Italy and achieved other podium positions. Nonetheless, the previous Brabham-Alfa concept had reached its limits. In 1978, the dominance of ground effect cars was foreseeable. Brabham was initially unable to counter this, because Alfa Romeo's broad twelve-cylinder engine, whose cylinder bank angle was 180 degrees, did not allow molded underbody profiles. Brabham's designer Gordon Murray responded with the Brabham BT46B , known as the “vacuum cleaner” , with a large fan at the rear of the vehicle which was officially supposed to be used for engine cooling, but which in fact primarily generated contact pressure. The "vacuum cleaner" won its debut in Anderstorp ; thereafter, however, the concept was banned.

For the 1979 season, Brabham designed the BT48 for the first time, a wing car with underbody profiles. Alfa Romeo contributed a new twelve-cylinder engine ( Tipo 1260 ), which was constructed within just two and a half months, with a cylinder bank angle of only 60 degrees, but apart from that, in the opinion of technicians, was essentially the same as the old 115-12 . Its output of 525 hp was only slightly higher than that of the best Cosworth DFV engines. The engine was very unreliable and suffered from fluctuations in performance. Lauda retired from April to August 1979 nine times in a row due to engine defects, his new team-mate Nelson Piquet five times. Brabham-Alfa did not reach a podium position in a world championship run throughout the year. The team was only successful at the Dino Ferrari Grand Prix 1979 in Imola , which Lauda won. However, the race did not have a world championship status. Bernie Ecclestone was disappointed with the development. He accused Carlo Chiti of concentrating primarily on his own Formula 1 project and of neglecting Brabham. In the late summer of 1979, Brabham separated from Alfa Romeo and switched to Cosworth engines before the end of the season.

From Cosworth DFV to BMW turbo engines

Nelson Piquet in the Brabham BT49, Monaco 1981

The switch back to the tried and tested Cosworth DFV paid off for Brabham from the 1980 season: The use of this compact engine made it possible to build a modern ground-effect car with the BT49 , which also comprised a monocoque made of innovative CFRP composite material. Nelson Piquet was immediately successful with this type of vehicle in his second full season for the team. With a total of three wins and three further podium places, he was one of the top drivers of the year and even led the drivers' championship after the Italian Grand Prix , but had to admit defeat to Alan Jones in the Williams after failures in the last two races of the season . In the following year, however, luck was on Piquet's side: After a likewise competitive championship, he was able to secure the championship in the final race of the season in Las Vegas with a fifth place ahead of Carlos Reutemann and Jacques Laffite ( Ligier ), who are now driving for Williams Races still had a chance of the title.

1982 was marked by the change to the new M12 - turbo engines from BMW , the new vehicles of the type BT50 drives. However, the year was marked by numerous breakdowns and other technical problems, which led Brabham to turn back to the proven BT49 with Cosworth engine at times. However, the lack of reliability ultimately ensured that Piquet could not compete for the championship and even had to admit defeat to his new teammate Riccardo Patrese in the end result . There was also a scandal at the Brazilian Grand Prix : Piquet, who was actually the first to cross the finish line, was subsequently disqualified because of a tank that was supposedly filled with cooling water for the brakes. However, this was demonstrably empty at the start of the race, so that Piquet (as well as the Williams competitor Keke Rosberg ) had contested the race with an underweight vehicle.

Brabham BT52 with turbo engine from BMW

In 1983, however, the new vehicle, the BT52 , was more mature. Piquet rarely retired and drove well all season - only in one of the races in which he saw the checkered flag did he finish worse than fourth. A third place at the season finale in South Africa finally allowed Piquet to overtake Renault driver Alain Prost , who was equally reliable and who suffered one of only three retirements in this race. Piquet not only secured his second driver title, but also became the first world champion with a turbo vehicle.

Unfortunately, this series did not last - the following season 1984 was again marked by numerous failures. With the BT53 , Piquet was able to achieve pole position in a total of nine races, but only crossed the finish line in seven of the 16 races of the season and ended up in fifth place in the championship. A curiosity of this season was the occupation of the second cockpit, which was shared by the brothers Teo and Corrado Fabi with the exception of the season finale in Portugal , in which Manfred Winkelhock came into play . In 1985 the situation remained similar - Piquet was out in the BT54 as often as in the previous year, but left the team after the end of the season and switched to Williams. It also became clear that the performance of the BMW engine had meanwhile reached its limits, especially since the competing teams now almost exclusively also used turbo engines.

In 1986, Brabham tried radical means to gain a head start. This year , for example, the extremely flat BT55 , in which the BMW four-cylinder was tilted to one side, caused a sensation. However, the vehicle turned out to be too problematic to handle and, in turn, technically extremely unreliable. In addition, Elio de Angelis had a fatal accident during test drives in Le Castellet . It was the Brabham team's first fatal accident. In 1987, a more conventional vehicle was used with the BT56 , which last used the BMW engine under this name (it was used in the 1988 season at Arrows under the name Megatron ), which the drivers Riccardo Patrese and Andrea De Cesaris each one Could control the podium, which in turn was extremely prone to defects. This ended Brabham's racing history in Formula 1 for the time being.

The Lüthi year

After a sabbatical in 1988, Brabham returned to Formula 1 in 1989. That year marked the beginning of the so-called new naturally aspirated engine era: for the first time since 1966, supercharged engines were banned. The team, nominally headed by Joachim Lüthi, was regarded as a new competitor, regardless of its decades-long tradition, with regard to the fact that it did not start last year and was therefore subject to the pre-qualification requirement in the first half of the season together with the weakest existing teams, from which it was freed in the second half of the year. Brabham competed with the “uncomplicated” model BT58 designed by Sergio Rinland , which was powered by a Judd eight-cylinder engine. The drivers were Martin Brundle and Stefano Modena, who had competed for EuroBrun the year before. The cars were unreliable. The team recorded only twelve target arrivals and 17 technical failures. The best result was Modena's third place in the third race of the season in Monaco , which was also the team's last podium finish. Brundle finished sixth in this race. In the season Brabham scored a total of eight points and was eighth in the constructors' championship. This put the team ahead of the March team, which had a much better financial position and had the same engine.

Middlebridge and Alolique

“Brabham auf Brabham”: In 1990 David Brabham drove for the team his father founded
Yamaha OX99 twelve-cylinder engine

At the end of 1989, Lüthi's arrest resulted in turbulence that had a direct impact on the racing team. Although the long-time Brabham manager Herbie Blash returned to the team at short notice and took over the management; but at the end of the season it was not clear whether the team would be able to compete in the coming year. It was not until the end of February 1990 that it became apparent that Brabham could continue as a subsidiary of Middlebridge.

Brabham was therefore not prepared for the first races of the 1990 season . The unchanged cars from last year did not appear at the opening Grand Prix in the USA until the Thursday evening before the race, and Herbie Blash only signed the tire contract with Pirelli on Friday morning. The team also had to improvise a lot at the following Grand Prix. The new BT59, designed by Sergio Rinland, only appeared at the San Marino Grand Prix . For this race, the Swiss racing driver Gregor Foitek , who was still committed by Lüthi, was replaced by David Brabham, the youngest son of the team's founder, Jack Brabham. Foitek switched to the team of his compatriot Peter Monteverdi. Brabham missed the qualification in six of 14 races and reached only one finish (15th place in France ). His teammate Modena achieved fifth place in the first race of the year, the only world championship points for his team this year. At the end of the year, the Brabham team finished ninth in the constructors ' championship, tied with Arrows .

In the 1991 season , the Brabham team repositioned itself. It was the exclusive engine partner of the Japanese manufacturer Yamaha , who had already made an unsuccessful attempt with Zakspeed in 1989 to establish themselves in Formula 1. Yamaha designed a completely new twelve-cylinder engine for Brabham, which was built into the likewise new Brabham BT60Y . When it made its debut in the third race of the season, the vehicle was not yet fully developed; The following races also showed problems, especially with the stability of the car, which meant that the car had to be significantly modified over the course of the season. This year's driver pairing was made up of Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell . The team did not score any World Championship points in the first half of the season, so it was subject to pre-qualification again in the second half. It wasn't until September at the Belgian Grand Prix that Blundell scored his first world championship point - also the first for Yamaha in Formula 1 - and Brundle added two more to this with his fifth place in the penultimate race in Japan . At the end of the season Brabham was again in ninth place in the constructors' championship.

The last Formula 1 Brabham: BT60B from 1992

At the end of 1991 there were again economic difficulties and unclear future prospects. With this in mind, numerous employees left the team in the first few months of 1992, including Herbie Blash and the designer Sergio Rinland. At the end of February 1992, Brabham only had 14 employees. The team's new owner, the Alolique Group, appointed Dennis Nursey and John Macdonald, the former owner of the RAM Racing motorsport team , as senior managers. Yamaha also ended the connection with Brabham in favor of an alliance with the better positioned Jordan Grand Prix team . Instead, Brabham relied again on Judd engines. A new car that Rinland had begun development before he left was not completed; the construction appeared under the designation GR02 in the summer of 1992, slightly changed by the Italian team Fondmetal . Brabham therefore competed with the Brabham BT60B, which was only slightly modified compared to the previous model . The Belgian Eric van de Poele was hired as the driver, whose sponsor Lease Plan made the continuation of racing possible. As the second driver, Brabham wanted to sign Akihiko Nakaya ; his commitment failed because of the lack of a super license . Instead, the second cockpit went to Giovanna Amati , the first and so far last woman since Desiré Wilson (1980) to be entered for a Formula 1 world championship run. Van de Poele started ten times for Brabham. Apart from the first race of the season, he failed in each qualification. Amati, for its part, missed qualifying in the first four races and was replaced at the Spanish Grand Prix by Williams test driver Damon Hill , the son of Formula 1 world champion Graham Hill . Hill did not qualify for the first five Formula 1 races. It was not until the British Grand Prix that he managed to qualify for the first time, with his team receiving technical support from Williams, whose owner Frank Williams did not want to see his long-term competitor fail in their home race. After the German Grand Prix , the team's economic problems worsened. Before the Hungarian Grand Prix , Brabham Van de Poele's car withdrew and only competed with Hill, who qualified and came home eleventh. That was the 399th and final race of the Brabham team. Brabham registered for the subsequent race in Italy , but did not compete.

Failed resuscitation

In the autumn of 1992, the British businessman Alan Randell bought the naming rights and some equipment of the Brabham team, but not its starting authorization. Nevertheless, he registered “Brabham” with the FIA ​​for the Formula 1 World Championship in 1993 and declared that he wanted to use a chassis designed by Galmer Engineering in the USA. Galmer publicly distanced himself from the project and the FIA ​​did not accept the report.

At the beginning of June 2009, numerous media reported that the German entrepreneur Franz Hilmer had registered a team called Brabham for the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship. However, the application was not considered by the FIA.

Formula 2

Brabham's last Formula 2 car: the 1972 BT40

In 1966, the racing drivers Jack Brabham and Denis Hulme drove a total of 11 wins in 12 races in the Brabham-Honda BT18 in Formula 2 . As an engine supplier for Formula 2 (1000 cm³), Honda equipped the Brabham racing team in 1965 and 1966. From 1967–1984 there was the Formula 2 European Championship, where Brabham used the BT 23 and BT 23C models. The Brabham BT23 (1967-1970), BT30 (1969-1971) and BT36 were powered at this time with Ford-Cosworth engines with 1600 cc.

Brabham as a manufacturer of customer vehicles

Right from the start, the company not only produced Formula 1 cars, but also racing cars for smaller classes. In fact, the Brabham BT2 for Formula Junior had already gone into production before the first Formula 1 vehicle, in order to finance further business operations with the sales proceeds. Vehicles for Formula 2 and Formula 5000 were added later.

After the Formula 1 cars were initially only used by the Brabham Racing Organization, numerous private racing teams took over used or newly built customer cars from Brabham in the 1960s. Brabham developed into the largest manufacturer of customer vehicles for Formula 1 in the late 1960s. One of the MRD buyers was Frank Williams , who started using customer cars in Formula 1 for his own racing team in 1969 , before becoming an independent designer in 1970 has been.

Numbers and dates

All Grand Prix winners on Brabham

Most wins on Brabham: Nelson Piquet, here at the Benetton
driver nation active for Brabham Grand
Prix
GP
victories
World Cup
points
World
title
best World Championship
position (year)
Nelson Piquet BrazilBrazil 1978 - 85 106 13 236 2 1. ( 1981 , 1983 )
Jack Brabham AustraliaAustralia 1962 - 70 80 7th 174 1 1. ( 1966 )
Carlos Reutemann ArgentinaArgentina 1972 - 76 66 4th 091 - 3rd ( 1975 )
Denis Hulme New ZealandNew Zealand 1965 - 67 26th 2 074 1 1. ( 1967 )
Dan Gurney United StatesUnited States 1963 - 65 29 2 063 - 4. ( 1965 )
Niki Lauda AustriaAustria 1978 - 79 29 2 048 - 4th ( 1978 )
Riccardo Patrese ItalyItaly 1982 - 83 , 1986 - 87 61 2 042 - 9th ( 1983 )
Jacky Ickx BelgiumBelgium 1969 11 2 037 - 2. ( 1969 )
Carlos Pace BrazilBrazil 1974 - 77 39 1 045 - 6th ( 1975 )

literature

  • Franz Kratochvil, The vacuum cleaner, Brabham Alfa Romeo BT 46 B , 2008, Egoht Verlag, ISBN 978-3902480521 (German)
  • Ian Bamsey: The 1000 bhp Grand Prix Cars , 1988 (GT Foulis & Co. Ltd), ISBN 978-0854296170 (English)
  • Didier Braillon, Leslie Thacker: Grand Prix 1989 , Editions ACLA, Paris 1990. No ISBN
  • Patrice Burchkalter, Jean-Francois Galeron: Tout sur la Formule 1 1991 . Surèsnes 1991, ISBN 2-87-636-067-5 (French)
  • Patrice Burchkalter, Jean-Francois Galeron: Formula 1 - A complete guide to 1992 . Surèsnes 1992, 2-87-636-107-8 (Eng.)
  • Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9
  • Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault . London 1998. ISBN 0-333-71716-3 .
  • Alan Henry: Auto Course 1990/91 , Osprey Publishing Ltd, London 1991, ISBN 0-905138-74-0 .
  • Alan Henry: Auto Course 1991/92. London 1992 (Hazleton Securities Ltd.), ISBN 0-905138-87-2 .
  • Alan Henry: Autocourse 1992/93 . London 1992 (Hazleton Securities Ltd.), ISBN 0-905138-96-1
  • David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English)
  • David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
  • Mike Lawrence: Brabham + Ralt + Honda: The Ron Tauranac story . Motor Racing Publications. ISBN 1-899870-35-0
  • Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945–1965 , Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1899870393 (English)
  • Derek Lawson: Formula 5000 Motor Racing: Back Then ... And Back Now , Veloce Publishing 2010, ISBN 978-1845842161
  • Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 (French)
  • Doug Nye: The Big Book of Formula 1 Racing Cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Publishing house Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X .

Web links

Commons : Brabham  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. S. z. B. Entry list for the Great Britain Grand Prix 1964 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (accessed on 23 August 2015).
  2. a b Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965, Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1899870393 (English), p. 53.
  3. Mike Lawrence: Brabham + Ralt + Honda: The Ron Tauranac story . Motor Racing Publications. ISBN 1-899870-35-0 , p. 74.
  4. Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 , p. 169.
  5. Before Brabham, some South African racing drivers had already started their own designs according to Formula 1 regulations; but they usually only appeared outside of the world championship at the South African Formula 1 championship .
  6. ^ Motorsport Aktuell, Issue 1–3 / 1989, title page.
  7. Cimarosti: The Century of Racing. P. 403.
  8. Motorsport Aktuell, issue 12/2001, p. 7.
  9. statement from Greogor Foiteks father Karl Foitek in an interview with the magazine Motorsport Aktuell in September 1989. See. Issue 36/1989, p. 32
  10. La Repubblica, March 8, 1990, p. 39.
  11. USF1's Peter Windsor and the strange story of the Brabham F1 team , article on f1fanatic.co.uk of February 24, 2009 , accessed March 15, 2009
  12. ^ A b c Alan Henry: Auto Course 1990/91 , Osprey Publishing Ltd, London 1991, ISBN 0-905138-74-0 , p. 101 f.
  13. ^ A b c John Willcock: Formula One obsession led to pounds 50m Landhurst fraud . In: The Independent of October 18, 1997.
  14. ^ Note from September 15, 1997 on the website www.grandprix.com (accessed on August 21, 2015).
  15. Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965, Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1899870393 (English), p. 54.
  16. Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 , p. 175.
  17. Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , motor book publisher Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , S. 293rd
  18. ^ Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 , p. 177.
  19. a b David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 41.
  20. a b Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 , p. 178.
  21. ^ David Hodges: Rennwagen from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 43.
  22. including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 3, 2009
  23. ^ David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 35.