Collectors & Aficionados
Drivers becoming Constructors: Jack Brabham
The story of Jack Brabham, a two-time world title-winning Australian driver with Cooper, who became a constructor in 1962 with designer Ron Tauranac, building simple and light Formula 1 cars with readily available engines and parts.
Enzo Ferrari, with that air of contempt that only a real constructor can afford, called them “The English garage owners”. They went by the names of Cooper and Lotus and built Formula 1 cars with parts readily available on the market, such as engines, suspension, brakes and gearboxes, creating simple and light cars that troubled the conventional manufacturers of the likes of BRM, Vanwall, Connaught, Maserati and, of course, Ferrari. At the wheel of these diminutive machines with their rear-mounted engine layouts, new drivers brimming with talent emerged. Among these was an Australian driver named Jack Brabham, who had conquered two world titles in 1959 and 1960 with Cooper. Precise, apparently emotionless, always impeccable, Brabham had a particular sensitivity towards the car’s development, a fundamental gift for drivers of the time who did not have the luxury of today’s telemetry and gigabytes of data to analyse. Not only that: in those days the prizes were modest and the engagements somewhat tenuous. So, in 1962 Brabham combined his own skills and racing titles with the talent of one of his countrymen, the designer Ron Tauranac, and decided to become a constructor. The market was booming with a great demand for British-designed Formula 3 cars after the sad and sudden demise of the Italian Stanguellini cars who followed the old beaten path of the front engine.
Jack Brabham driving his BT3 single seater at the Nürburgring during the 1962 Formula 1 German GP
The technical route went in the direction of maximum results for minimum cost: no extensive chassis innovation which remained tubular, but a lot of work was put into the technical solutions and in the details. The result: the first wins arrived and the two Brabhams, driven by Jack and Dan Gurney conquered victories. They had to wait for the rules to be changed before they could claim their first title: the engine displacement was raised to 3,000 cc and the Australian team, to everyone's surprise, opted for a V8 engine produced at home by Repco based on an Oldsmobile. Surprise that quickly transformed into clear superiority when Brabham won the 1966 World Title, a feat repeated by the other team driver Dennis Hulme the following year.
