Brabham BT46
Encyclopedia
The Brabham BT46 was a Formula One
racing car, designed by Gordon Murray
for the Brabham team, owned by Bernie Ecclestone
, for the 1978 Formula One season
. The car featured several radical design elements, the most obvious of which was the use of flat panel heat exchangers on the bodywork of the car to replace conventional water and oil radiators
. The concept did not work in practice and was removed before the car’s race debut, never to be seen again. The cars, powered by a flat-12
Alfa Romeo engine, raced competitively with modified nose-mounted radiators for most of the year, driven by Niki Lauda
and John Watson
, winning one race in this form and scoring sufficient points for the team to finish third in the constructors championship.
The "B" variant of the car, also known as the "fan car", was introduced at the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix
as a counter to the dominant ground effect Lotus 79
. The BT46B generated an immense level of downforce
by means of a fan, claimed to be for increased cooling, but which also extracted air from beneath the car. The car only raced once in this configuration in the Formula One World Championship—when Niki Lauda won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp
. The concept was declared illegal by the FIA
before the car could race again. The BT46B therefore preserves a 100% winning record.
engine and the fuel it required to complete a race distance. After lengthy development, it became competitive, but never won a race. In mid 1977, Brabham designer Gordon Murray started work on the ambitious design of the BT46. It was intended to compensate for the weight of the engine and fuel and allow the Brabham team to take a large technical step forward as well as to improve safety.
and electronic ignition. The engine featured a cast magnesium alloy
engine block with aluminium alloy
crankcase
and magnesium or aluminium cylinder head
s. There were four gear driven valves per cylinder. In Formula One form by 1978 it delivered about 520 bhp at 12,000 rpm, about 50 bhp more than the Cosworth DFV
engines used by most teams, as well as a peak torque of 324 lb/ft of torque
. However the power came at the expense of greater size, increased fuel and oil consumption and about 40 kg more weight. The engine was also difficult to work with, with significant variations in dimensions between units.
The car used a revised and lighter version of the 6-speed gearbox designed for the BT45B. Brabham designed the gearbox casing, which was cast by Alfa Romeo and used Hewland
gears.
alloy
monocoque
featuring the trapezoid
al cross section common to many of Gordon Murray’s 1970s designs. It featured inbuilt pneumatic jacks fed from an external supply of compressed air to lift it off the ground for tyre changes during practice. It employed a very early version of the carbon brakes that were in universal use by the mid 1980s—a concept taken from the aircraft industry. The system, which Brabham had been developing since 1976, combined carbon composite brake pads with a steel disc faced with carbon composite 'pucks'.
The most radical feature of the original car was its use of flat plate heat exchangers mounted flush to the surface of the bodywork in place of conventional water radiators. The absence of standard radiators allowed Murray to compensate somewhat for the large engine and fuel tanks and produce a relatively light design with a low frontal cross section (important to reduce drag). In practice the heat exchangers did not provide anything like enough cooling capacity, one of South African Murray’s rare design failures, and were replaced by more standard radiators in the nose of the car, similar to that of the BT45, compromising its aerodynamic efficiency. In addition to the question of drag the nose-mounted radiators moved weight towards the front of the car.
on 4 March 1978, with the revised nose mounted radiators. The cars were immediately competitive, although reliability was suspect.
After the winning debut and subsequent withdrawal of the BT46B “fan car” at the Swedish Grand Prix (see below) the Brabham team completed the season with the standard BT46s. Niki Lauda winning the Italian Grand Prix
in the standard car, albeit after Mario Andretti
and Gilles Villeneuve
were penalised a minute for jumping the second race start after Ronnie Peterson
’s fatal accident at the first start.
The BT46 appeared for the last time in the Formula One World Championship at the first round of the 1979 season in the hands of Nelson Piquet
. Niki Lauda also used the car to qualify for that race, as the new BT48 was proving troublesome, although he did race the new car. Piquet retired on the first lap after a multi-car collision that wrecked the BT46.
had introduced the concept of ground effect
to the Formula One world championship in with their fast, but not always reliable, Type 78
. Peter Wright and Colin Chapman
had discovered that by carefully shaping the underside of the car, they could accelerate the air passing under the car, thereby reducing the air pressure under the car relative to that over it and pushing the tyres down harder onto the track. The increased downforce gave more grip and thus higher cornering speeds. Ground effect had the great advantage of being a low drag
solution, unlike conventional wings, meaning that the increased cornering ability was not compromised by a decrease in straight line speed. In 1978
Lotus ironed out the reliability problems and further developed the concept from relatively simple sidepods with a wing profile into full venturi
tunnels under the car. As soon as they appeared at Zolder
, the black and gold Type 79s
of Mario Andretti
and Ronnie Peterson
outpaced the opposition by a comfortable margin.
It had not been clear to other designers just what Wright and Chapman had done with the Type 78, but by early 1978, Gordon Murray had grasped how the Lotus design was achieving its remarkable levels of grip. He also realised that the Alfa Romeo flat-12
engine used by Brabham that season was too wide to permit the venturi
tunnels needed for really significant ground effect. At Murray's instigation, Alfa went on to produce a V12 engine for the 1979 season. Ferrari
, however, persisted with the flat-12 design and therefore lacked full ground effect until their disastrous 1980 season. In the meantime, Murray's idea was to use another way of reducing the pressure underneath the car. In 1970 the Chaparral 2J "sucker car" had proved significantly faster than its opposition in the American Can-Am sportscar series. The 2J had two fans at the rear of the car driven by a dedicated two-stroke engine to draw large amounts of air from under the chassis, reducing pressure and creating downforce. It had suffered from reliability problems with the second engine before being banned by the sporting authorities.
Murray designed a version driven by a complex series of clutch
es running from the engine to a large single fan at the back of the car. Therefore the faster the engine ran, the stronger the suction effect. Like the Lotus, it had sliding "skirts" that sealed the gap between the sides of the cars and the ground. These prevented excessive air from being sucked into the low pressure area under the car and dissipating the ground effect. There was a rule banning "moveable aerodynamic devices", but the fan also drew air through a horizontally mounted radiator over the engine. Using a fan to assist cooling was legal—Brabham had used a small electric fan to this effect on the BT45Cs at the South American races at the start of the year—and Brabham claimed that this was the primary effect of the new device. These claims were lent some legitimacy by the cooling system design issues that had affected the original design at the start of the year.
The cars were modified BT46s—chassis numbers BT46/4 and BT46/6. Modifications to implement the fan concept were quite extensive—involving sealing the engine bay as well as adding the clutch system and the fan. They were designed and tested in some secrecy. Brabham's lead driver, Niki Lauda, realised he had to adjust his driving style, mostly for cornering. He found that if he accelerated around corners, the car would "stick" to the road as if it were on rails. This had the side effect of exposing the driver to very high lateral acceleration, which would become a major problem in the ground effect era. In his autobiography, Lauda described the car as being unpleasant to drive due to the lateral loads and reliance on aerodynamics over driver skill. He realised early on that the rate of ground effect development meant that in the future, every driver would be exposed to such g-loading while behind the wheel of such a car, and the physical effort needed to drive the cars would leave the drivers exhausted by the end of the races.
said "It is like a bloody great vacuum cleaner. It throws muck and rubbish at you at a hell of a rate". Murray says that this was untrue: "The fan couldn't spit anything out the back because the fan e-flux [exit speed] was only 55 mph. Besides the radial fan would have sent any stones flying sideways". The legality of the cars was soon protested, but they were allowed to race. They qualified second and third behind championship leader Andretti. In the race, Watson spun off on the 19th lap. Once a back-marker dropped oil onto the track, the remaining Brabham was in a class of its own, seemingly unaffected by the slippery surface. Lauda passed Andretti around the outside of one of the corners, who dropped out shortly afterwards due to a broken valve, and went on to win by over half a minute from Riccardo Patrese
in an Arrows
.
There was uproar from rival teams, who saw the Fancar as a threat to their competitiveness. Lotus immediately started design work on a fan version of the 79. Bernie Ecclestone
, owner of the Brabham team, had also been secretary of the Formula One Constructors Association
(FOCA) since 1972 and became its president during 1978. According to Ecclestone's biographer Terry Lovell, the heads of the other FOCA teams, led by Colin Chapman threatened to withdraw their support for Ecclestone unless he withdrew the BT46B. Ecclestone negotiated a deal within FOCA whereby the car would have continued for another three races before Brabham would voluntarily withdraw it. However, the CSI intervened to declare that henceforth fan cars would not be allowed and the car never raced again in Formula One. The car was not considered to have been illegal when it raced however, so the Swedish Grand Prix win stood. The two converted chassis were returned to standard BT46 configuration for the next race.
A BT46 competed in 'B' specification once again in 1979 in the Gunnar Nilsson
Trophy race at Donington Park
. This was an event held to raise funds for the Gunnar Nilsson Cancer Fund. Originally intended as a non-championship Formula One race, without FIA sanction it was instead run in a time trial
format, with victory going to the fastest single lap recorded. As it was not an FIA event, the car's illegality was not a factor. Nelson Piquet drove, coming fourth of the five cars competing.
. The drivers complained of reduced revs and straight line speed. It was not used in the race and did not appear again.
[a] This total includes points scored by the BT45C car Brabham used during the first two races.
[b] This total includes points scored by the BT48 & BT49 cars Brabham used for the rest of the season.
Formula One
Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
racing car, designed by Gordon Murray
Gordon Murray
Prof. Gordon Murray , is a renowned designer of Formula One race cars and the McLaren F1 road car.-Early life:...
for the Brabham team, owned by Bernie Ecclestone
Bernie Ecclestone
Bernard Charles "Bernie" Ecclestone is an English business magnate, as president and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration and through his part-ownership of Alpha Prema, the parent company of the Formula One Group of companies. As such, he is generally considered the primary...
, for the 1978 Formula One season
1978 Formula One season
The 1978 Formula One season included the 29th FIA Formula One World Championship which commenced on January 15, 1978, and ended on October 8 after sixteen races. Mario Andretti was the season Champion and the last American to date to win a Formula One race...
. The car featured several radical design elements, the most obvious of which was the use of flat panel heat exchangers on the bodywork of the car to replace conventional water and oil radiators
Radiator (engine cooling)
Radiators are used for cooling internal combustion engines, mainly in automobiles but also in piston-engined aircraft, railway locomotives, motorcycles, stationary generating plant or any similar use of such an engine....
. The concept did not work in practice and was removed before the car’s race debut, never to be seen again. The cars, powered by a flat-12
Flat-12
A flat-12 is an internal combustion engine in a flat configuration, having 12 cylinders.The flat-12 is wider than a V12...
Alfa Romeo engine, raced competitively with modified nose-mounted radiators for most of the year, driven by Niki Lauda
Niki Lauda
Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda is an Austrian former Formula One racing driver and three-time F1 World Champion. More recently an aviation entrepreneur, he has founded and run two airlines and was manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years.- Early years in racing :Born in Vienna,...
and John Watson
John Watson (racing driver)
John Marshall "Wattie" Watson MBE is a British former racing driver from Northern Ireland. He competed in Formula One, winning five Grands Prix and also in the World Sportscar Championship...
, winning one race in this form and scoring sufficient points for the team to finish third in the constructors championship.
The "B" variant of the car, also known as the "fan car", was introduced at the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix
1978 Swedish Grand Prix
The 1978 Swedish Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on June 17, 1978 at the Scandinavian Raceway; it was the eighth race of the 1978 Formula One season...
as a counter to the dominant ground effect Lotus 79
Lotus 79
The Lotus 79 was a Formula One car designed in late 1977 by Colin Chapman, Geoff Aldridge, Martin Ogilvie, Tony Rudd and Peter Wright of Lotus. It is considered by many to be one of the most significant and respected racing car designs of all time....
. The BT46B generated an immense level of downforce
Downforce
Downforce is a downwards thrust created by the aerodynamic characteristics of a car. The purpose of downforce is to allow a car to travel faster through a corner by increasing the vertical force on the tires, thus creating more grip....
by means of a fan, claimed to be for increased cooling, but which also extracted air from beneath the car. The car only raced once in this configuration in the Formula One World Championship—when Niki Lauda won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp
Scandinavian Raceway
The Scandinavian Raceway is a race circuit in Anderstorp , Sweden.The track was built on marshlands in 1968 and became an extremely popular venue in the 1970s, just as Swede Ronnie Peterson was at the height of his career...
. The concept was declared illegal by the FIA
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile is a non-profit association established as the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus on 20 June 1904 to represent the interests of motoring organisations and motor car users...
before the car could race again. The BT46B therefore preserves a 100% winning record.
Concept
The first Alfa-Romeo engined Brabham, the Brabham BT45 was an overweight and bulky car, initially weighing 625 kg and as wide as was permitted under the F1 technical regulations. This was due to the difficulties of packaging the large, powerful Alfa flat-12Flat-12
A flat-12 is an internal combustion engine in a flat configuration, having 12 cylinders.The flat-12 is wider than a V12...
engine and the fuel it required to complete a race distance. After lengthy development, it became competitive, but never won a race. In mid 1977, Brabham designer Gordon Murray started work on the ambitious design of the BT46. It was intended to compensate for the weight of the engine and fuel and allow the Brabham team to take a large technical step forward as well as to improve safety.
Engine and transmission
Alfa-Romeo’s sportscar-derived flat-12 engine had a capacity of 2995 cc and employed fuel injectionFuel injection
Fuel injection is a system for admitting fuel into an internal combustion engine. It has become the primary fuel delivery system used in automotive petrol engines, having almost completely replaced carburetors in the late 1980s....
and electronic ignition. The engine featured a cast magnesium alloy
Magnesium alloy
Magnesium alloys are mixtures of magnesium with other metals , often aluminium, zinc, manganese, silicon, copper, rare earths and zirconium. Magnesium is the lightest structural metal. Magnesium alloys have a hexagonal lattice structure, which affects the fundamental properties of these alloys...
engine block with aluminium alloy
Aluminium alloy
Aluminium alloys are alloys in which aluminium is the predominant metal. The typical alloying elements are copper, magnesium, manganese, silicon and zinc. There are two principal classifications, namely casting alloys and wrought alloys, both of which are further subdivided into the categories...
crankcase
Crankcase
In an internal combustion engine of the reciprocating type, the crankcase is the housing for the crankshaft. The enclosure forms the largest cavity in the engine and is located below the cylinder, which in a multicylinder engine are usually integrated into one or several cylinder blocks...
and magnesium or aluminium cylinder head
Cylinder head
In an internal combustion engine, the cylinder head sits above the cylinders on top of the cylinder block. It closes in the top of the cylinder, forming the combustion chamber. This joint is sealed by a head gasket...
s. There were four gear driven valves per cylinder. In Formula One form by 1978 it delivered about 520 bhp at 12,000 rpm, about 50 bhp more than the Cosworth DFV
Cosworth DFV
The DFV is an internal combustion engine that was originally produced by Cosworth for Formula One motor racing. Named Four Valve because of the four valves per cylinder, and Double as it was a V8 development of the earlier, four-cylinder FVA , making it a Double Four Valve engine...
engines used by most teams, as well as a peak torque of 324 lb/ft of torque
Torque
Torque, moment or moment of force , is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist....
. However the power came at the expense of greater size, increased fuel and oil consumption and about 40 kg more weight. The engine was also difficult to work with, with significant variations in dimensions between units.
The car used a revised and lighter version of the 6-speed gearbox designed for the BT45B. Brabham designed the gearbox casing, which was cast by Alfa Romeo and used Hewland
Hewland
Founded by Mike Hewland in 1957, Hewland is a British engineering company specialising in racing-car gearboxes. Hewland was the first company to manufacture a bespoke racing-car gearbox....
gears.
Chassis and suspension
The BT46 was an aluminiumAluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
alloy
Alloy
An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...
monocoque
Monocoque
Monocoque is a construction technique that supports structural load by using an object's external skin, as opposed to using an internal frame or truss that is then covered with a non-load-bearing skin or coachwork...
featuring the trapezoid
Trapezoid
In Euclidean geometry, a convex quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides is referred to as a trapezoid in American English and as a trapezium in English outside North America. A trapezoid with vertices ABCD is denoted...
al cross section common to many of Gordon Murray’s 1970s designs. It featured inbuilt pneumatic jacks fed from an external supply of compressed air to lift it off the ground for tyre changes during practice. It employed a very early version of the carbon brakes that were in universal use by the mid 1980s—a concept taken from the aircraft industry. The system, which Brabham had been developing since 1976, combined carbon composite brake pads with a steel disc faced with carbon composite 'pucks'.
The most radical feature of the original car was its use of flat plate heat exchangers mounted flush to the surface of the bodywork in place of conventional water radiators. The absence of standard radiators allowed Murray to compensate somewhat for the large engine and fuel tanks and produce a relatively light design with a low frontal cross section (important to reduce drag). In practice the heat exchangers did not provide anything like enough cooling capacity, one of South African Murray’s rare design failures, and were replaced by more standard radiators in the nose of the car, similar to that of the BT45, compromising its aerodynamic efficiency. In addition to the question of drag the nose-mounted radiators moved weight towards the front of the car.
Racing history
The BT46s debuted at the third race of the 1978 season, the South African Grand Prix1978 South African Grand Prix
The 1978 South African Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 4 March 1978 at Kyalami.Both the Ferrari and Brabham teams had new cars in Kyalami for the race...
on 4 March 1978, with the revised nose mounted radiators. The cars were immediately competitive, although reliability was suspect.
After the winning debut and subsequent withdrawal of the BT46B “fan car” at the Swedish Grand Prix (see below) the Brabham team completed the season with the standard BT46s. Niki Lauda winning the Italian Grand Prix
1978 Italian Grand Prix
The 1978 Italian Grand Prix was the 14th race of the 1978 Formula One season. It was held on 10 September 1978 at Monza. It was marred by the death of Ronnie Peterson following an accident at the start of the race....
in the standard car, albeit after Mario Andretti
Mario Andretti
Mario Gabriele Andretti is a retired Italian American world champion racing driver, one of the most successful Americans in the history of the sport. He is one of only two drivers to win races in Formula One, IndyCar, World Sportscar Championship and NASCAR...
and Gilles Villeneuve
Gilles Villeneuve
Joseph Gilles Henri Villeneuve, better known as Gilles Villeneuve , was a Canadian racing driver. An enthusiast of cars and fast driving from an early age, he started his professional career in snowmobile racing in his native province of Quebec...
were penalised a minute for jumping the second race start after Ronnie Peterson
Ronnie Peterson
Bengt Ronnie Peterson was a Swedish racing driver. He was a two-time runner-up in the FIA Formula One World Drivers' Championship.Peterson began his motor racing career in kart racing, traditionally the discipline where the majority of race drivers begin their careers in open-wheel racing...
’s fatal accident at the first start.
The BT46 appeared for the last time in the Formula One World Championship at the first round of the 1979 season in the hands of Nelson Piquet
Nelson Piquet
Nelson Piquet Souto Maior , known as Nelson Piquet, is a Brazilian former racing driver. He was Formula One world champion in , and . He is one of eight drivers to win three or more world championships, the others being Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna , Alain Prost , Juan...
. Niki Lauda also used the car to qualify for that race, as the new BT48 was proving troublesome, although he did race the new car. Piquet retired on the first lap after a multi-car collision that wrecked the BT46.
Concept
LotusTeam Lotus
Team Lotus was the motorsport sister company of English sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars. The team ran cars in many motorsport series including Formula One, Formula Two, Formula Ford, Formula Junior, IndyCar and sports car racing...
had introduced the concept of ground effect
Ground effect in cars
Ground effect is term applied to a series of aerodynamic effects used in car design, which has been exploited to create downforce, particularly in racing cars. This has been the successor to the earlier dominant aerodynamic theory of streamlining...
to the Formula One world championship in with their fast, but not always reliable, Type 78
Lotus 78
The Lotus 78 'wing car' was a Formula One racing car used in the and seasons. It was designed by Peter Wright, Colin Chapman, Martin Ogilvie and Tony Rudd, and was the car that started the ground effect revolution in Formula One.-Concept:...
. Peter Wright and Colin Chapman
Colin Chapman
Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman CBE was an influential British designer, inventor, and builder in the automotive industry, and founder of Lotus Cars....
had discovered that by carefully shaping the underside of the car, they could accelerate the air passing under the car, thereby reducing the air pressure under the car relative to that over it and pushing the tyres down harder onto the track. The increased downforce gave more grip and thus higher cornering speeds. Ground effect had the great advantage of being a low drag
Drag (physics)
In fluid dynamics, drag refers to forces which act on a solid object in the direction of the relative fluid flow velocity...
solution, unlike conventional wings, meaning that the increased cornering ability was not compromised by a decrease in straight line speed. In 1978
1978 Formula One season
The 1978 Formula One season included the 29th FIA Formula One World Championship which commenced on January 15, 1978, and ended on October 8 after sixteen races. Mario Andretti was the season Champion and the last American to date to win a Formula One race...
Lotus ironed out the reliability problems and further developed the concept from relatively simple sidepods with a wing profile into full venturi
Venturi effect
The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a fluid flows through a constricted section of pipe. The Venturi effect is named after Giovanni Battista Venturi , an Italian physicist.-Background:...
tunnels under the car. As soon as they appeared at Zolder
1978 Belgian Grand Prix
-Report:The main news before the Belgian Grand Prix was that the new Lotus 79 was now ready to race, and immediately Mario Andretti showed its pace by taking pole comfortably from Carlos Reutemann and Niki Lauda...
, the black and gold Type 79s
Lotus 79
The Lotus 79 was a Formula One car designed in late 1977 by Colin Chapman, Geoff Aldridge, Martin Ogilvie, Tony Rudd and Peter Wright of Lotus. It is considered by many to be one of the most significant and respected racing car designs of all time....
of Mario Andretti
Mario Andretti
Mario Gabriele Andretti is a retired Italian American world champion racing driver, one of the most successful Americans in the history of the sport. He is one of only two drivers to win races in Formula One, IndyCar, World Sportscar Championship and NASCAR...
and Ronnie Peterson
Ronnie Peterson
Bengt Ronnie Peterson was a Swedish racing driver. He was a two-time runner-up in the FIA Formula One World Drivers' Championship.Peterson began his motor racing career in kart racing, traditionally the discipline where the majority of race drivers begin their careers in open-wheel racing...
outpaced the opposition by a comfortable margin.
It had not been clear to other designers just what Wright and Chapman had done with the Type 78, but by early 1978, Gordon Murray had grasped how the Lotus design was achieving its remarkable levels of grip. He also realised that the Alfa Romeo flat-12
Flat-12
A flat-12 is an internal combustion engine in a flat configuration, having 12 cylinders.The flat-12 is wider than a V12...
engine used by Brabham that season was too wide to permit the venturi
Venturi effect
The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a fluid flows through a constricted section of pipe. The Venturi effect is named after Giovanni Battista Venturi , an Italian physicist.-Background:...
tunnels needed for really significant ground effect. At Murray's instigation, Alfa went on to produce a V12 engine for the 1979 season. Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari is the racing team division of the Ferrari automobile marque. The team currently only races in Formula One but has competed in numerous classes of motorsport since its formation in 1929, including sportscar racing....
, however, persisted with the flat-12 design and therefore lacked full ground effect until their disastrous 1980 season. In the meantime, Murray's idea was to use another way of reducing the pressure underneath the car. In 1970 the Chaparral 2J "sucker car" had proved significantly faster than its opposition in the American Can-Am sportscar series. The 2J had two fans at the rear of the car driven by a dedicated two-stroke engine to draw large amounts of air from under the chassis, reducing pressure and creating downforce. It had suffered from reliability problems with the second engine before being banned by the sporting authorities.
Murray designed a version driven by a complex series of clutch
Clutch
A clutch is a mechanical device which provides for the transmission of power from one component to another...
es running from the engine to a large single fan at the back of the car. Therefore the faster the engine ran, the stronger the suction effect. Like the Lotus, it had sliding "skirts" that sealed the gap between the sides of the cars and the ground. These prevented excessive air from being sucked into the low pressure area under the car and dissipating the ground effect. There was a rule banning "moveable aerodynamic devices", but the fan also drew air through a horizontally mounted radiator over the engine. Using a fan to assist cooling was legal—Brabham had used a small electric fan to this effect on the BT45Cs at the South American races at the start of the year—and Brabham claimed that this was the primary effect of the new device. These claims were lent some legitimacy by the cooling system design issues that had affected the original design at the start of the year.
The cars were modified BT46s—chassis numbers BT46/4 and BT46/6. Modifications to implement the fan concept were quite extensive—involving sealing the engine bay as well as adding the clutch system and the fan. They were designed and tested in some secrecy. Brabham's lead driver, Niki Lauda, realised he had to adjust his driving style, mostly for cornering. He found that if he accelerated around corners, the car would "stick" to the road as if it were on rails. This had the side effect of exposing the driver to very high lateral acceleration, which would become a major problem in the ground effect era. In his autobiography, Lauda described the car as being unpleasant to drive due to the lateral loads and reliance on aerodynamics over driver skill. He realised early on that the rate of ground effect development meant that in the future, every driver would be exposed to such g-loading while behind the wheel of such a car, and the physical effort needed to drive the cars would leave the drivers exhausted by the end of the races.
Racing history and aftermath
The two modified cars were prepared for the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp on 17 June 1978, for Niki Lauda and John Watson. When not in use, the fan was covered by a dustbin lid, but it soon became clear what the modified Brabham was intended to achieve: when the drivers blipped the throttle, the car could be seen to squat down on its suspension as the downforce increased. Lotus driver Mario AndrettiMario Andretti
Mario Gabriele Andretti is a retired Italian American world champion racing driver, one of the most successful Americans in the history of the sport. He is one of only two drivers to win races in Formula One, IndyCar, World Sportscar Championship and NASCAR...
said "It is like a bloody great vacuum cleaner. It throws muck and rubbish at you at a hell of a rate". Murray says that this was untrue: "The fan couldn't spit anything out the back because the fan e-flux [exit speed] was only 55 mph. Besides the radial fan would have sent any stones flying sideways". The legality of the cars was soon protested, but they were allowed to race. They qualified second and third behind championship leader Andretti. In the race, Watson spun off on the 19th lap. Once a back-marker dropped oil onto the track, the remaining Brabham was in a class of its own, seemingly unaffected by the slippery surface. Lauda passed Andretti around the outside of one of the corners, who dropped out shortly afterwards due to a broken valve, and went on to win by over half a minute from Riccardo Patrese
Riccardo Patrese
Riccardo Gabriele Patrese is an Italian former racing driver, who raced in Formula One from to .He became the first Formula One driver to achieve 200 Grand Prix starts when he appeared at the 1990 British Grand Prix, and the first to achieve 250 starts at the 1993 German Grand Prix...
in an Arrows
Arrows
Arrows Grand Prix International was a British Formula One team active from to . For a period of time, it was also known as Footwork.-Origins :...
.
There was uproar from rival teams, who saw the Fancar as a threat to their competitiveness. Lotus immediately started design work on a fan version of the 79. Bernie Ecclestone
Bernie Ecclestone
Bernard Charles "Bernie" Ecclestone is an English business magnate, as president and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration and through his part-ownership of Alpha Prema, the parent company of the Formula One Group of companies. As such, he is generally considered the primary...
, owner of the Brabham team, had also been secretary of the Formula One Constructors Association
Formula One Constructors Association
The Formula One Constructors' Association is an organization of the chassis builders who design and build the cars that race in the FIA Formula One World Championship...
(FOCA) since 1972 and became its president during 1978. According to Ecclestone's biographer Terry Lovell, the heads of the other FOCA teams, led by Colin Chapman threatened to withdraw their support for Ecclestone unless he withdrew the BT46B. Ecclestone negotiated a deal within FOCA whereby the car would have continued for another three races before Brabham would voluntarily withdraw it. However, the CSI intervened to declare that henceforth fan cars would not be allowed and the car never raced again in Formula One. The car was not considered to have been illegal when it raced however, so the Swedish Grand Prix win stood. The two converted chassis were returned to standard BT46 configuration for the next race.
A BT46 competed in 'B' specification once again in 1979 in the Gunnar Nilsson
Gunnar Nilsson
Gunnar Nilsson was a Swedish racing driver, born in Helsingborg. Before entering Formula One, he won the 1975 British Formula Three Championship....
Trophy race at Donington Park
Donington Park
Donington Park is a motorsport circuit near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England.Originally part of the Donington Hall estate, it was created as a racing circuit during the pre-war period when the German Silver Arrows were battling for the European Championship...
. This was an event held to raise funds for the Gunnar Nilsson Cancer Fund. Originally intended as a non-championship Formula One race, without FIA sanction it was instead run in a time trial
Time trial
In many racing sports an athlete will compete in a time trial against the clock to secure the fastest time. In cycling, for example, a time trial can be a single track cycling event, or an individual or team time trial on the road, and either or both of the latter may form components of...
format, with victory going to the fastest single lap recorded. As it was not an FIA event, the car's illegality was not a factor. Nelson Piquet drove, coming fourth of the five cars competing.
Concept
Another variation on the theme was produced later in the season. Like the BT46B, the BT46C removed the radiators from the front wing assembly leaving a clean aerodynamic wing and moving the centre of gravity further back again. The standard radiators were replaced by units from a Volkswagen Golf mounted behind the front wheels out of the airstream in a region of positive pressure.Racing history
The BT46C only ran in practice for the 1978 Austrian Grand Prix1978 Austrian Grand Prix
The 1978 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 13 August 1978 at Österreichring.-Report:The crowds for the Austrian GP were full of Niki Lauda fans; but however for them Lauda qualified only 12th as the Lotus cars again took the front row, with Ronnie Peterson on pole. The surprise in...
. The drivers complained of reduced revs and straight line speed. It was not used in the race and did not appear again.
Formula One results
(results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)| Year | Entrant | Engine | Tyres | Drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Points | WCC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brabham | Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo in Formula One Alfa Romeo participated in Formula One, as both a constructor and engine supplier, from to .-Success, 1950-1951:In 1950 Nino Farina won the inaugural Formula One World Championship in a 158 with supercharger, in 1951 Juan Manuel Fangio won while driving an Alfetta 159... F12 |
ARG 1978 Argentine Grand Prix The 1978 Argentine Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 15 January 1978 at Buenos Aires.-Report:Mario Andretti took pole in his Lotus, with Carlos Reutemann's Ferrari joining him on the front row and Ronnie Peterson in the other Lotus third on the grid... |
BRA 1978 Brazilian Grand Prix The 1978 Brazilian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 29 January 1978 at Jacarepagua. The race was won by Argentine driver Carlos Reutemann driving a Ferrari 312T2 in a flag-to-flag performance. The win also represented the first win for tyre manufacturer Michelin... |
RSA 1978 South African Grand Prix The 1978 South African Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 4 March 1978 at Kyalami.Both the Ferrari and Brabham teams had new cars in Kyalami for the race... |
USW 1978 United States Grand Prix West The 1978 United States Grand Prix West was a Formula One race held on April 2, 1978 at Long Beach, California.__FORCETOC__-Summary:Carlos Reutemann took over at the halfway mark from Ferrari teammate Gilles Villeneuve, when the Canadian crashed out of the lead, and won by eleven seconds... |
MON 1978 Monaco Grand Prix The 1978 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 7 May 1978 at Monaco. It was won by Patrick Depailler of France, his first Formula One victory.-Report:... |
BEL 1978 Belgian Grand Prix -Report:The main news before the Belgian Grand Prix was that the new Lotus 79 was now ready to race, and immediately Mario Andretti showed its pace by taking pole comfortably from Carlos Reutemann and Niki Lauda... |
ESP 1978 Spanish Grand Prix The 1978 Spanish Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 4 June 1978 at Jarama.-Report:Once again the new Lotus 79 demonstrated its speed, with Mario Andretti on pole again with Ronnie Peterson alongside, and Carlos Reutemann having to settle for the second row... |
SWE 1978 Swedish Grand Prix The 1978 Swedish Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on June 17, 1978 at the Scandinavian Raceway; it was the eighth race of the 1978 Formula One season... |
FRA 1978 French Grand Prix The 1978 French Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 2 July 1978 at Paul Ricard.-Report:Following the banning of the "fan car", Brabham were forced to revert back to their previous car again, but it did not deter them, with John Watson on pole and Niki Lauda starting third behind Mario... |
GBR 1978 British Grand Prix The 1978 British Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 16 July 1978 at Brands Hatch.-Report:Lotus took the front row, with Ronnie Peterson beating Mario Andretti to pole, with Jody Scheckter next up on the second row. Andretti took the lead at the start from Peterson, and the two Lotus cars... |
GER 1978 German Grand Prix The 1978 German Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 30 July 1978 at Hockenheimring.-Report:There were no surprises in qualifying, with Mario Andretti on pole and Ronnie Peterson alongside him, with Niki Lauda third. At the start, Peterson got off better and took the lead from Andretti, but he... |
AUT 1978 Austrian Grand Prix The 1978 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 13 August 1978 at Österreichring.-Report:The crowds for the Austrian GP were full of Niki Lauda fans; but however for them Lauda qualified only 12th as the Lotus cars again took the front row, with Ronnie Peterson on pole. The surprise in... |
NED 1978 Dutch Grand Prix The 1978 Dutch Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 27 August 1978 at Zandvoort.-Report:Qualifying was as expected, Mario Andretti taking pole with Ronnie Peterson alongside in the all-Lotus front row, and Niki Lauda heading the second row. At the start, Andretti led with Peterson following,... |
ITA 1978 Italian Grand Prix The 1978 Italian Grand Prix was the 14th race of the 1978 Formula One season. It was held on 10 September 1978 at Monza. It was marred by the death of Ronnie Peterson following an accident at the start of the race.... |
USA 1978 United States Grand Prix The 1978 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on October 1, 1978 at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, New York... |
CAN 1978 Canadian Grand Prix The 1978 Canadian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 8 October 1978 at Montreal.- Pre-Race :Both championships were already sown up , so this, the final round, was a dead rubber in the 1978 title chase... |
53 | 3rd | |||
| Niki Lauda Niki Lauda Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda is an Austrian former Formula One racing driver and three-time F1 World Champion. More recently an aviation entrepreneur, he has founded and run two airlines and was manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years.- Early years in racing :Born in Vienna,... |
Ret | Ret | 2 | Ret | Ret | 1 | Ret | 2 | Ret | Ret | 3 | 1 | Ret | Ret | ||||||||
| John Watson John Watson (racing driver) John Marshall "Wattie" Watson MBE is a British former racing driver from Northern Ireland. He competed in Formula One, winning five Grands Prix and also in the World Sportscar Championship... |
3 | Ret | 4 | Ret | 5 | Ret | 4 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 2 | Ret | Ret | ||||||||
| Brabham | Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo in Formula One Alfa Romeo participated in Formula One, as both a constructor and engine supplier, from to .-Success, 1950-1951:In 1950 Nino Farina won the inaugural Formula One World Championship in a 158 with supercharger, in 1951 Juan Manuel Fangio won while driving an Alfetta 159... F12 |
ARG 1979 Argentine Grand Prix The 1979 Argentine Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 21 January 1979 at the Autódromo Oscar Alfredo Gálvez in Buenos Aires.- Classification :- Notes :* Lap Leaders: Patrick Depailler 10 laps ; Jacques Laffite 43 laps .... |
BRA 1979 Brazilian Grand Prix The 1979 Brazilian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 4 February 1979 at Interlagos.-Race report:The Ligier team dominated the race weekend with their superior ground-effect JS11... |
RSA 1979 South African Grand Prix The 1979 South African Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 3 March 1979 at Kyalami.- Classification :- Notes :* Lap Leaders: Jean-Pierre Jabouille 1 lap ; Gilles Villeneuve 39 laps ; Jody Scheckter 38 laps .... |
USW 1979 United States Grand Prix West The 1979 United States Grand Prix West was a Formula One race held on April 8, 1979 at Long Beach, California.__FORCETOC__-Summary:Canadian Gilles Villeneuve captured pole, fastest lap and the win for Ferrari, followed by teammate Jody Scheckter, as the Prancing Horses took a big step toward... |
ESP 1979 Spanish Grand Prix The 1979 Spanish Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 29 April 1979 at Jarama.- Classification :-Standings after the race:Drivers' Championship standingsConstructors' Championship standings... |
BEL 1979 Belgian Grand Prix - Classification :- Notes :* Lap Leaders: Patrick Depailler 25 laps ; Jacques Laffite 12 laps ; Alan Jones 16 laps ; Jody Scheckter 17 laps .-Standings after the race:Drivers' Championship standings... |
MON 1979 Monaco Grand Prix The 1979 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 27 May 1979 at Monaco.- Classification :- Notes :* Lap Leaders: Jody Scheckter 76 laps .* Last race - James Hunt-Standings after the race:Drivers' Championship standings... |
FRA 1979 French Grand Prix The 1979 French Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 1 July 1979 at Dijon.It marked the first victory of a turbocharged car in Formula One, with Renault overcoming the reliability problems that had initially plagued their car... |
GBR 1979 British Grand Prix The 1979 British Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 14 July 1979 at Silverstone. It marked the Williams team's first GP pole position and win .- Classification :- Notes :... |
GER 1979 German Grand Prix The 1979 German Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 29 July 1979 at Hockenheimring.- Classification :-Standings after the race:Drivers' Championship standingsConstructors' Championship standings... |
AUT 1979 Austrian Grand Prix The 1979 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 12 August 1979 at Österreichring.- Classification :- Notes :* Lap Leaders: Gilles Villeneuve 3 laps ; Alan Jones 51 laps .* First pole position: René Arnoux-Standings after the race:... |
NED 1979 Dutch Grand Prix The 1979 Dutch Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 26 August 1979 at Zandvoort.-Summary:René Arnoux put his Renault on pole position but the slow start of the turbocharged car allowed Alan Jones to break free. Arnoux and Clay Regazzoni collided, eliminating the Williams on the spot while the... |
ITA 1979 Italian Grand Prix The 1979 Italian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 9 September 1979 at Monza.Monza was revamped for 1979, including a re-surfaced track; and run-off areas were added to the Curva Grande and the Lesmo Curves.... |
CAN 1979 Canadian Grand Prix The 1979 Canadian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 30 September 1979 at Montreal.During practice Niki Lauda announced his retirement from Formula One. Ricardo Zunino replaced him for the race. The organizers would not let the Alfa Romeo team compete unless they pre-qualified... |
USA 1979 United States Grand Prix The 1979 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on October 7, 1979 at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, New York... |
7 | 8th | ||||
| Nelson Piquet Nelson Piquet Nelson Piquet Souto Maior , known as Nelson Piquet, is a Brazilian former racing driver. He was Formula One world champion in , and . He is one of eight drivers to win three or more world championships, the others being Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna , Alain Prost , Juan... |
Ret |
[a] This total includes points scored by the BT45C car Brabham used during the first two races.
[b] This total includes points scored by the BT48 & BT49 cars Brabham used for the rest of the season.