When the South African engineer Gordon Murray arrived at Brabham, the team had the reputation of being a rather conservative constructor. But when Bernie Ecclestone bought out the team and placed Gordon Murray as chief engineer, the young South African had more freedom to shake up habits and displayed creativity and elegance in style, while showing his ability to exploit the loopholes in the regulations.
His early Brabhams were distinguished by an elegant and almost futuristic design and, coincidentally, were always well dressed by beautiful liveries.
The most beautiful Murray's Brabham of this period was undoubtedly the BT44.
But his most spectacular creation was the surprising Brabham BT46B fancar from 1978 which exploited a clever ground-effect vacuum system inspired by Jim Hall's Chaparral CANAM prototype but in a more clever way. This weapon would have been formidable against the unbeatable Lotus 78, but the competitors did everything to ensure that it was banned, which was done just after its 1st race which was also its first and only victory.
Murray's efforts were finally crowned with success three years later, in 1981, with the BT49. He developed a hydropneumatic suspension system that sticked the Brabham to the ground right when it left the boxes, and allowing the car to regain its legal ground clearance when stationary. This device bordering on legality took advantage of a regulation that was poorly written and subject to interpretation. Respecting the letter of the latter but not the intention of the legislator, it was subsequently copied by the rest of the competitors.
When the controversial ground effect was banned at the dawn of the 1983 season, Gordon Murray was the fastest to release a new chassis perfectly suited to the new rules and performing. The new Brabham BT52 with its sweeping shape which was to become the main 1983 trend won on its first outing in Rio, still with Nelson Piquet at the wheel. Despite only 3 victories during the season, the latter won the title again with his superb arrow shaped F1 even though the constructor title went to Ferrari.
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In 1986, Murray again surprised the F1 world with his BT55. Its objective was to obtain a very low chassis to reduce drag and allow maximum air circulation to the rear wing in order to tame the overpowered BMW 4-cylinder turbo which was extremely wearing out the rear tires. To achieve this, Murray had the radical idea of tilting the engine to 72° lowering by the way its center of gravity. Visually, the result was of rare elegance. To achive the maximum air circulation toward the rear wing, the position of the driver was also lowered. Patrese and De Angelis position was more lying down than usual as in the good old days of the 60s with the shoulders protruding from the cockpit giving the new chassis a unique aspect compared to the F1 of its time.
The car was admittedly very fast in straights, but suffered from insoluble reliability problems, largely due to difficulties in adapting the BMW engine which suffered from lubrication problems and gearbox issues. Alas, this car is also the only creation of Gordon Murray at the wheel of which a driver was killed. It was the excellent Italian driver Elio De Angelis. This failure eventually prompted the South African engineer to leave Brabham for McLaren where his improved ideas about the BT55 were less radical and more successful on the McLaren MP 4/4.
BRABHAM BT49 1981 – FORD COSWORTH V8 ENGINE NELSON PIQUET
by Atr-Lab
Available here on GPBox
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