Brabham BT19
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| Category | Formula One/Tasman Series |
|---|---|
| Constructor | Motor Racing Developments |
| Designer | Ron Tauranac |
| 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 2994cc V8 naturally aspirated Mid-engined, longitudinally mounted |
| Transmission | Hewland HD/DG 5-speed manual ZF differential |
| Fuel | Esso |
| Tyres | Goodyear |
| Notable entrants | Brabham Racing Organisation |
| Notable drivers | Jack Brabham |
| Debut | NK, NK. |
| Races competed | 19 10 Formula One world championship 6 Formula One non-championship 2 Tasman Series 1 Formula Libre |
| Race victories | 6 4 Formula One world championship 2 Formula One non-championship |
| Constructors' Championships | 1 (1966) |
| Drivers' Championships | 1 (1966) |
| Pole positions | NK |
| Fastest laps | NK |
The Brabham BT19 is a Formula One racing car designed by Ron Tauranac for the Brabham team. Jack Brabham referred to it as his "Old Nail". A one-off design, it was used by Australian Jack Brabham to win his third world championship in 1966. It was also the first car bearing its driver's name to win a world championship race, Brabham's two earlier wins having been taken by American Dan Gurney.
For the 1966 Formula One season the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) introduced a larger 3 litre limit on engine size. The BT19, originally designed for a 1.5 litre Coventry-Climax engine in 1965, was modified to take the new Repco V8 engine developed in Australia for the team.
BT19 is currently in Australia, where, as of 2004, it was still occasionally being driven at demonstration events by Jack Brabham, by then in his 70s.
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[edit] Concept
The BT19 was designed, like the Lotus 39, to use Coventry Climax's flat-16 FWMW engine during the 1965 Formula One season, the last year of regulations limiting engine capacity to 1.5 litres. Since Climax's existing FWMV V8 engines continued to win regularly during the season, the engine company eventually abandoned the flat-16 project and Brabham put the BT19 chassis to one side. For the 1966 season, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile had already announced a doubling of the engine capacity limit. Climax chose not to develop new engines for this new formula, leaving many teams without a viable engine supply.[1] Jack Brabham had persuaded Australian company Repco to develop a new 3 litre engine, the first example of which was delivered to the United Kingdom in late 1965.
"Brabham" cars were designed and built by Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD), a company jointly owned by Jack Brabham and Australian designer Ron Tauranac, which built cars for customers in several racing series. The Brabham Formula One team, run by Jack Brabham's own Brabham Racing Organisation (BRO), bought its cars from MRD but Tauranac had little connection with the race team between 1962 and 1965. 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". Although Jack Brabham investigated the possibility of using other chassis, the two men eventually reached an agreement that Tauranac would have a greater interest in the Formula One team, which MRD would eventually take over completely from BRO.[2] This agreement was not reached until November 1965, however, leaving no time for MRD to design a new car to take their new Australian-built engine. The BT19 chassis was pressed into use instead.[3]
[edit] Chassis and suspension
Tauranac continued with the mild steel spaceframe chassis used in all his previous Brabham designs, although Lotus had introduced the monocoque to Formula One as long ago as the 1962 Formula One season and most of Brabham's competitors were by now using this approach, which offered theoretical gains in stiffness and lightness. The Brabham reputation for customer cars was in part built upon the works teams, including the Formula One team, using the same technology as the customer cars. Tauranac believed that contemporary monocoques were not usefully stiffer than a well-designed spaceframe, and were harder to repair and maintain for customers. One novel feature was the use of oval section tubing, of which Tauranac had found a supply, around the cockpit area, where the spaceframe cannot be triangulated fully, to strengthen it.[3] The car weighed around 1250 lb, around 150 lb 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 lbs, about 280 lbs less than the more powerful rival Cooper-Maseratis.[4]
The bodywork was glass-reinforced plastic, and although aerodynamics would not really come to the fore until the 1968 Formula One season, Tauranac had been making use of the Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel since 1963 to refine the shape of his cars. Jack Brabham has attributed the car's "swept-down nose and upswept rear lip to the engine cowl" to Tauranac's "attention to aerodynamic detail".[5]
The suspension was outboard all round, another 'conservative' decision by Tauranac, who had assessed the reduction in aerodynamic drag from moving the suspension inboard to be only 2%. He judged this gain to be insufficient to outweigh the extra work and inconvenience to the mechanics working on the car under pressure.[6] At the front the suspension layout was unequal length, non-parallel double wishbones. The front uprights were modified from the Alford & Alder units used on the Triumph Herald. The rear suspension consisted of a single top link, a reversed lower wishbone and two radius rods locating cast magnesium alloy uprights.[3]
The car continued Tauranac's reputation for producing cars that handled well, Brabham has since said: "The BT19 was beautifully balanced and I loved its readiness to drift through fast curves".[7]
The sole example carries the chassis number F1-1-65.
[edit] Engine and transmission
Repco's 620 unit used aluminium engine blocks obtained from the abandoned Oldsmobile F85 engine project, at £11 per unit, as well as a selection of other off the shelf parts. The engine, which produced only around 300 brake horsepower (bhp) compared to around 360 bhp for the Ferrari and Maserati V12s,[8] was relatively fuel efficient. On the car's debut Brabham reports that the car achieved 7 miles per gallon (mpg), against figures of around 4 mpg for its "more exotic rivals".[5] This, combined with the lightweight chassis, meant that it could start a Grand Prix with only 35 gallons of fuel on board, compared to around 55 gallons for the Cooper-Maseratis.[4]
The 620 engine's exhausts exited on the outer side of the block, and therefore occupied the same space as the rear suspension. The resulting arrangement saw the exhaust pipes wrapped around the suspension members, a complicated design which was difficult to work with.
The 740 unit used in the three races the car was entered for in 1967 used a different, proprietary engine block. It also had its exhausts mounted centrally.
The car was initially fitted with a Hewland HD (Heavy Duty) gearbox, orginally designed for the 1.5 litre formula. This design was marginal for the more powerful 3 litre engines, with the result that Brabham normally made very gentle starts - the start being the time the greatest loading is put through the gearbox. The HD was later replaced with the sturdier DG (Different Gearbox) design. Wheels were initially 13 inches but soon upgraded to 15 inches and treaded Goodyear tyres were used throughout the car's racing career.[9]
[edit] Racing history
Although regarded by its designer as a "lash-up", BT19 had a very successful racing career.[3] The car was only driven by Jack Brabham in 1966, and at the 1966 French Grand Prix at Reims-Gueux he used it to take his first Formula One world championship victory in one of his own cars, the first man to do so. He went on to take four straight wins and the world championship. Although the BT20, a tidied up version of the design, was available from earlier in the season, Jack Brabham continued to use BT19 until the 1966 Italian Grand Prix, at which he won the 1966 world championship. The car was used again at three championship races in the 1967 Formula One season, taking second place at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix.
BT19 also competed in the final two races of the 1966 Tasman Series with a 2.5 litre version of the Repco engine, where it recorded one retirement and a third place.
[edit] Complete results
(key) (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 |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Lawrence (1998) p.103
- ^ Henry (1985) p.55
- ^ a b c d Nye (1985) p. 45
- ^ a b Unique p.45 Jack Brabham - World Champion
- ^ a b Brabham, Nye (2005) p.191
- ^ Lawrence (1999) pp.44-45
- ^ Brabham, Nye (2004) p.199
- ^ Nye (1985) pp.151 & 155 Nye reports that Ferrari claimed 380 for their V12, but believes 360 to be more likely.
- ^ Lawrence (1999) p.77
[edit] References
- Books
- Brabham, Jack & Doug Nye (2004), The Jack Brabham Story, Motorbooks International, ISBN 0-7603-1590-6
- Henry, Alan (1985). Brabham, the Grand Prix Cars. Osprey. ISBN 0-905138-36-8.
- Lawrence, Mike (1998). Grand Prix Cars 1945 - 1965. Motor Racing Publications. ISBN 1-899870-39-3.
- Lawrence, Mike (1999). Brabham+Ralt+Honda: The Ron Tauranac story. Motor Racing Publications. ISBN 1-899870-35-0.
- Nye, Doug (1986). Autocourse history of the Grand Prix car 1966-85. Hazleton publishing. ISBN 0-905138-37-6.
- Unique, (Various). Brabham - the man and the machines. Unique Motor Books. ISBN 1-84155-619-X.
- Websites
- www.oldracingcars.com Retrieved 30 March 2007
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