Jack Brabham was a driver ahead of his time: commercially savvy, brusque on the verge of ruthlessness on the track and as adept at dismantling an engine as he was at launching a wide variety of cars on the circuits of the time. Brabham knew what he wanted from a racing car and how to get it and it is therefore no wonder that he became the first driver to win the world championship in a car with his name on him.
Brabham had dropped out of school at 15 to work in a local garage and then set up his own business by buying, repairing and selling second-hand motorcycles before joining Australian aviation as a mechanic. His first experiences on the track took place on gravel ovals, and his thoughtful driving style never abandoned him.
In road racing he showed a tendency to drive within limits: rivals spoke regretfully of the way he deliberately put a rear wheel into dirt when cornering to throw stones at his pursuers. Then he had an initial confrontation with the Australian Federation of Motorsports over sponsorship issues. Having reached a compromise to cover the Redex logos on his Cooper-Bristol rather than remove them, Brabham applied a loose layer of duct tape that peeled off at speed, sending the officials into free diving.
Undoubtedly he had what it takes to achieve success in the most thriving and entrepreneurial era to come, dominated by car manufacturers based in Great Britain and referred to by Enzo Ferrari as ‘garage owners’.
Europe was calling. Brabham’s mechanical engineering skills found fertile ground at the Cooper Cars headquarters in Surbiton where his burgeoning talent behind the wheel became evident on the European racing scene. Brabham took the 1959 Formula 1 world championship against expectations behind the wheel of the small rear-engined Cooper T51. F1 had reached a turning point: the era of the front engine was over.
Brabham took the 1960 title more convincingly, with five straight victories mid-season, but only after winning a proverbial tug-of-war with the Cooper managers over the development of the car. Father and son, Charles and John Cooper, were fundamentally averse to change and designer Owen Maddock was even more so.
Ron Tauranac, Jack Brabham, Brabham BT24 Repco
Photo by: David Phipps
After winning the internal war to develop the Cooper T53 “Lowline” – with straight rather than curved frame tubes, coil-over dampers instead of leaf springs in the rear suspension, and the engine and transmission mounted an inch lower – Brabham has paved the way to continue autonomously.
In collaboration with Ron Tauranac, who designed the step-down transmission that enabled the lower engine mount of the 1960 title-winning T53, Brabham founded Motor Racing Developments in 1961. The first product of the Brabham-Tauranac partnership was a Formula Junior chassis that Gavin Youl took to victory in the Australian Formula Junior Championship in 1962.
F1’s transition to 1.5-liter engines produced an anomalous season in 1961, dominated by Ferrari mainly because other manufacturers were slow to build engines for the new formula. The balance tipped again in favor of the ‘garage owners’ as more competitive engines became available, but Brabham was not impressed with the Coventry Climax V8 he had installed in customer Lotus chassis in 1962.
Nor was he in love with the Lotus 21 or 24, finding them both “tight as a can of sardines” and intolerably hot from the internal plumbing. During the British GP in Aintree, Jack got blisters on his right foot caused by a hot tube and then had to get rid of the burned shoe.
Jack Brabham, Brabham BT24 Repco
Photo by: Motorsport Images
The BT3 F1 prototype took shape in the new premises of Motor Racing Developments in the Weylock Works, an anonymous factory on the banks of the River Wey in New Haw. Presented at the 1962 German GP, he went into action in some world championship races although Brabham later fielded him in extra-championship events even after he was replaced by the BT7.
The prototype provided some useful lessons: Neither Brabham nor Tauranac were inclined to follow Lotus in monocoque construction, believing that a properly designed spaceframe could be just as light and stiff, and Brabham was pleased with the new car’s handling. Using 13-inch rather than 15-inch front wheels was not very successful as Brabham himself discovered when his brake pads wore out halfway during the Oulton Park Gold Cup. The Colotti gearbox and the Climax engine also proved fragile.
Brabham and Tauranac quickly ditched the 13-inch front wheels and brought further developments to the BT7, also spending time in the Motor Industry Research Association’s wind tunnel to refine the nose shape that had previously generated a lift. The original BT3 was kept as a reserve when the team expanded to enter two cars in 1963 for Brabham and Dan Gurney.
It was in Gurney that Brabham found a kind of kindred spirit. Not only was Dan a very talented driver, but he possessed a mechanical aptitude which would later lead him to car manufacturing through his own company. The results, however, would take time to arrive.
The BT7 was lighter than the prototype and featured a new five-speed Hewland gearbox based on a Volkswagen crankcase that proved quite reliable after a troubled introduction in Munich. Both riders appreciated the comfort of the roomy chassis with externally positioned coolant pipes. The car handled fairly smoothly, but the slim Lotus 25 monocoque, which fitted theoretically identical Climax engines (with Lucas injection instead of carburetors), had a straight-line advantage.
As the season progressed Brabham became convinced that he was receiving unequal service from the producer which had led him to two world titles. The reliability of the 1.5-liter V8 Climax had been suspect ever since its introduction, and in Brabham’s cars it proved totally deficient.
A string of problems in off-season racing left Brabham running out of engines for the start of the 1963 F1 season in Monaco. Jack had a rebuilt engine that flew in on Saturday just in time to discover that Gurney’s had lost a valve during rehearsal. Dan was given the “new” engine, while Brabham raced in a spare Lotus 25 borrowed from Colin Chapman. A courtesy that left Brabham impressed by the traction and agility of the monocoque and also by the gearbox.
Jack Brabham, Brabham BT24 Repco takes the win
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Engine failures defined the Brabham season, and the picture did not improve with the introduction of a revised unit with a flat crank mechanism that required a different oil inlet and exhaust configuration. Gurney finished second in Zandvoort, despite a late pitstop to fix a sagging oil pipe, then fifth in Reims a week later where the team was late due to the time it took to make repairs.
Two retirements at the next British GP led Brabham to field only one car – the BT3 – for the extra-championship Solitude Grand Prix. On that occasion Jack became the first driver to win an F1 race in a car of his own creation.
“Having once been Climax’s favorite customer,” Brabham thundered, “it was irritating now to realize how much we were getting as a second choice. Where the four-cylinder Climax FPF engines had been virtually indestructible, the Climax V8 was lousy. It had a rough operation, it was never really pleasant to drive, and worse still, its reliability, at least in our cars, was often absent. “
While Brabham’s frustrations were understandable, particularly in 1963 when Jim Clark won seven of the 10 rounds of the world championship, the following season three of Clark’s four retirements were engine-related. And many of the BT7’s shrinkages were caused by faulty fuel pump filters and failures of the electronic ignition transistor box, location sensitive elements and installation in different chassis.
Ultimately the BT7 was not as fast as the Lotus 25 and, later, the Lotus 33. Regardless of whether Lotus received preferential treatment from its engine supplier, its slim monocoque chassis was more aerodynamic – a crucial advantage in this was low power. While many retreats came as Brabham and Gurney occupied points positions, generally those places were always behind Clark.
Dunlop’s new 13-inch R6 tires required a change in suspension geometry for 1964. The season started off brilliantly with Brabham winning the extra-championship Aintree 200 and Silverstone International Trophy races. Success in the championship rounds seemed to remain frustratingly out of reach.
At Spa Gurney led the operations in a massive way and then ran out of fuel, while the next race, in Rouen, Gurney was second behind Clark when the Lotus engine failed. Finally the name Brabham would be written in the golden book of winning brands. Gurney would win again in Mexico at the end of the season, but neither driver was fighting for the title. Problems with the powertrain had resulted in seven retirements and had dispelled several other opportunities to score points despite the competitive pace of the BT7.
Despite this, Motor Racing Developments had a full order book for its junior single-seaters and its new BT11 F1 chassis for customers. An exclusive tire supply agreement with Goodyear meant that the final season of the 1.5-liter era would be an in-between year, but it allowed the Brabham racing team to have an excellent financial base that allowed them to plan their ‘was 3 liters that would leave the following year.
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