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Brabham
Motor Racing Developments Ltd., commonly known as Brabham (/ˈbræbəm/ BRAB-əm), was a British racing car manufacturer and Formula One racing team. It was founded in 1960 by the Australian driver Jack Brabham and the British-Australian designer Ron Tauranac. The team had a successful thirty-year history, winning four FIA Formula One World Drivers' Championships and two World Constructors' Championships.
Under Brabham and Tauranac, Brabham won double world championships in 1966 and 1967, with the 1966 drivers' title going to Jack Brabham and the 1967 title going to Denny Hulme. Jack Brabham is the only Formula One driver to win a Drivers' Championship in a car bearing his own name. Brabham was the first Formula One team to use a wind tunnel to design cars. It became the world's largest manufacturer of open-wheel racing cars sold to customer teams, having built more than 500 cars by 1970. Teams using Brabham cars won championships in Formula Two and Formula Three. The cars also competed in events like the Indianapolis 500 and Formula 5000 racing.
The businessman Bernie Ecclestone owned Brabham during most of the 1970s and 1980s, and later became responsible for administering the commercial aspects of Formula One. Under Ecclestone and chief designer Gordon Murray, the team won two more Drivers' Championships in the 1980s with Brazilian Nelson Piquet. During this period, the team withdrew from manufacturing customer cars but introduced innovations such as carbon brakes and hydropneumatic suspension; it also reintroduced in-race refuelling. Its unique 'fan car' won its only race, in 1978, before being withdrawn. Piquet won his first championship in 1981 in the ground effect BT49-Ford. In 1983, he became the first driver to win a title with a turbocharged car, the Brabham BT52, which was powered by BMW's M12 straight-four engine and won four Grands Prix that season. Ecclestone sold the team in 1988.
Midway through the 1992 season, the team collapsed financially and was investigated for fraud, as its new owner, Japanese engineering firm Middlebridge, failed to make its loan repayments. In 2009, a German organisation unsuccessfully attempted to enter the 2010 Formula One season using the Brabham name.
The Brabham team was founded by Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac, who met in 1951 while both were successfully building and racing cars in their native Australia. Brabham, who had been a highly successful dirt oval speedway Speedcar driver with multiple Australian national and state titles to his credit before moving full-time into road racing in 1953, was the more successful driver. He went to the United Kingdom in 1955 to further his racing career. There he started driving for the Cooper Car Company works team. By 1958, he had progressed with them to Formula One, the highest category of open-wheel racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motorsport's world governing body. In 1959 and 1960, Brabham won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in Cooper's revolutionary mid-engined cars.
Despite their innovation of placing the engine behind the driver, the Coopers and their chief designer, Owen Maddock, were generally resistant to developing their cars. Brabham pushed for further advances, and played a significant role in developing Cooper's highly successful 1960 T53 "lowline" car, with input from his friend Tauranac. Brabham was confident he could do better than Cooper. In late 1959, he asked Tauranac to come to the UK and work with him. Initially, they produced upgrade kits for Sunbeam Rapier and Triumph Herald road cars at his car dealership, Jack Brabham Motors. However, their long-term aim was to design racing cars. Brabham described Tauranac as "absolutely the only bloke I'd have gone into partnership with". Later, Brabham offered a Coventry-Climax FWE-engined version of the Herald, with 83 hp (62 kW) and uprated suspension to match the extra power.
To meet that aim, Brabham and Tauranac set up Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD), deliberately avoiding the use of either man's name. The new company would compete with Cooper in the market for customer-built racing cars. As Brabham was still employed by Cooper, Tauranac produced the first MRD car, for the entry level Formula Junior class, in secrecy. Unveiled in the summer of 1961, the "MRD" was soon renamed. Motoring journalist Jabby Crombac pointed out that "[the] way a Frenchman pronounces those initials—written phonetically, 'em air day'—sounded perilously like the French word... merde." Gavin Youl achieved a second-place finish at Goodwood and another at Mallory Park in the MRD-Ford. The cars were subsequently known as Brabhams, with type numbers starting with BT for "Brabham Tauranac".
By the 1961 Formula One season, the Lotus and Ferrari teams had developed the mid-engined approach further than Cooper. Brabham had a poor season, scoring only four points, and—having run his own private Coopers in non-championship events during 1961—left the company in 1962 to drive for his own team: the Brabham Racing Organisation, using cars built by Motor Racing Developments. The team was based at Chessington, England and held the British licence.
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Brabham
Motor Racing Developments Ltd., commonly known as Brabham (/ˈbræbəm/ BRAB-əm), was a British racing car manufacturer and Formula One racing team. It was founded in 1960 by the Australian driver Jack Brabham and the British-Australian designer Ron Tauranac. The team had a successful thirty-year history, winning four FIA Formula One World Drivers' Championships and two World Constructors' Championships.
Under Brabham and Tauranac, Brabham won double world championships in 1966 and 1967, with the 1966 drivers' title going to Jack Brabham and the 1967 title going to Denny Hulme. Jack Brabham is the only Formula One driver to win a Drivers' Championship in a car bearing his own name. Brabham was the first Formula One team to use a wind tunnel to design cars. It became the world's largest manufacturer of open-wheel racing cars sold to customer teams, having built more than 500 cars by 1970. Teams using Brabham cars won championships in Formula Two and Formula Three. The cars also competed in events like the Indianapolis 500 and Formula 5000 racing.
The businessman Bernie Ecclestone owned Brabham during most of the 1970s and 1980s, and later became responsible for administering the commercial aspects of Formula One. Under Ecclestone and chief designer Gordon Murray, the team won two more Drivers' Championships in the 1980s with Brazilian Nelson Piquet. During this period, the team withdrew from manufacturing customer cars but introduced innovations such as carbon brakes and hydropneumatic suspension; it also reintroduced in-race refuelling. Its unique 'fan car' won its only race, in 1978, before being withdrawn. Piquet won his first championship in 1981 in the ground effect BT49-Ford. In 1983, he became the first driver to win a title with a turbocharged car, the Brabham BT52, which was powered by BMW's M12 straight-four engine and won four Grands Prix that season. Ecclestone sold the team in 1988.
Midway through the 1992 season, the team collapsed financially and was investigated for fraud, as its new owner, Japanese engineering firm Middlebridge, failed to make its loan repayments. In 2009, a German organisation unsuccessfully attempted to enter the 2010 Formula One season using the Brabham name.
The Brabham team was founded by Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac, who met in 1951 while both were successfully building and racing cars in their native Australia. Brabham, who had been a highly successful dirt oval speedway Speedcar driver with multiple Australian national and state titles to his credit before moving full-time into road racing in 1953, was the more successful driver. He went to the United Kingdom in 1955 to further his racing career. There he started driving for the Cooper Car Company works team. By 1958, he had progressed with them to Formula One, the highest category of open-wheel racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motorsport's world governing body. In 1959 and 1960, Brabham won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in Cooper's revolutionary mid-engined cars.
Despite their innovation of placing the engine behind the driver, the Coopers and their chief designer, Owen Maddock, were generally resistant to developing their cars. Brabham pushed for further advances, and played a significant role in developing Cooper's highly successful 1960 T53 "lowline" car, with input from his friend Tauranac. Brabham was confident he could do better than Cooper. In late 1959, he asked Tauranac to come to the UK and work with him. Initially, they produced upgrade kits for Sunbeam Rapier and Triumph Herald road cars at his car dealership, Jack Brabham Motors. However, their long-term aim was to design racing cars. Brabham described Tauranac as "absolutely the only bloke I'd have gone into partnership with". Later, Brabham offered a Coventry-Climax FWE-engined version of the Herald, with 83 hp (62 kW) and uprated suspension to match the extra power.
To meet that aim, Brabham and Tauranac set up Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD), deliberately avoiding the use of either man's name. The new company would compete with Cooper in the market for customer-built racing cars. As Brabham was still employed by Cooper, Tauranac produced the first MRD car, for the entry level Formula Junior class, in secrecy. Unveiled in the summer of 1961, the "MRD" was soon renamed. Motoring journalist Jabby Crombac pointed out that "[the] way a Frenchman pronounces those initials—written phonetically, 'em air day'—sounded perilously like the French word... merde." Gavin Youl achieved a second-place finish at Goodwood and another at Mallory Park in the MRD-Ford. The cars were subsequently known as Brabhams, with type numbers starting with BT for "Brabham Tauranac".
By the 1961 Formula One season, the Lotus and Ferrari teams had developed the mid-engined approach further than Cooper. Brabham had a poor season, scoring only four points, and—having run his own private Coopers in non-championship events during 1961—left the company in 1962 to drive for his own team: the Brabham Racing Organisation, using cars built by Motor Racing Developments. The team was based at Chessington, England and held the British licence.