When F1 champions started their own teams - Part 2

Jack Brabham / Motor Racing Development

Having won two championships for Cooper, Brabham decided to start his own Formula 1 team with aircraft manufacturer Ron Tauranac in 1961. He convinced the Australian to move to UK and the duo founded Motor Racing Development Ltd with the initial aim of selling cars in lower Formulas. Their cars were initially known as MRDs until a Swiss journalist pointed out that “[the] way a Frenchman pronounces those initials – written phonetically, ‘em air day’ – sounded perilously like the French word… merde (which translates to ‘shit’ in English)”. Subsequently, the cars were named using the initials of their founders, BT.

The team finally made its Formula 1 debut in 1962 under the name of Brabham Racing Organisation, initially racing with a customer Lotus chassis before hitting the track with their own BT3 at the German Grand Prix. As the team’s sole driver, Jack Brabham scored nine points with a best result of a fourth place finish (twice).

After a series of engine failures, the Brabham team started the 1963 season with a customer Lotus 25. But the team subsequently launched their second F1 car, BT7, and also expanded to a two-car operation with former Ferrari and Porsche driver Dan Gurney filling the second seat. Gurney flourished in the season, scoring a majority of the team’s 28 points to help the team take third place in the Constructors’ title. Meanwhile, the team owner won two races in the non-championship Solitude and Austrian Grand Prix, albeit with BT3.

In 1964, Gurney earned the team their first Grand Prix victory at the Rouen-Les-Essarts circuit in France. He also went on to win the season finale in Mexico. The following season, Jack Brabham and Dan Gulley racked in a total of six podium finishes to help the team finish third in the championship.

1966 saw Formula 1 switch to a new 3L Formula and Brabham found an engine supplier in the form of Australian automobile engineering company Repco. The company came up with a 310 bhp engine, that was by far the least powerful of the lot. However, it was light and reliable and at the third Grand Prix of the season in France, Jack Brabham became the first driver to win a race in a car bearing his own name. With three further victories, Brabham became the first and as of now, the only eponymous Formula 1 world champion at the age of 40 – a feat unlikely to be repeated in the future. With Denny Hulme scoring an additional 18 points, the team took the Constructors’ title and completed a title double.

The team won their second Constructors’ title the following season, but this time it was Denny Hulme who lifted the drivers championship trophy. At the end of the 1967 season, Hulme announced that he would be racing with McLaren next season, making way for future world champion Jochen Rindt to sign for Brabham.

Repsco designed a new powerful engine in a bid to outpace Cosworth. However, their efforts suffered because of poor reliability and their drivers were classified only three times over the course of the season. While the car was fast, with Rindt scoring two pole positions and the same number of podiums, poor reliability hurt its chances and Rindt decided to move to Lotus after just one season with the British team.

The season also brought an end to Brabham’s partnership with Repco engines. The manufacturer always had to deal with communication delays between UK and Australia, and having spent more money than envisaged, they decided to put an end to this project.

The team replaced Rindt with former Ferrari driver Jacky Ickx and Resco’s V8 engine with a Ford-Cosworth DFV. Ickx had a strong second half of the season, taking the top step of the podium twice in Italy and Canada, while Brabham was sidelined for half of the season due to a testing crash. Nevertheless, he took two podiums to take the team to a second place finish in the Constructors’ standings.

With Ickx returning to Ferrari for the 1970 season, Jack decided to hire the services of Rolf Stommelen as his teammate for his final season in Formula 1 as a driver. He initially had hoped to retire at the end of the 1969 season, but he changed his mind and continued to race for another year.

He won the season opener in Australia and looked set to take another victory in Monaco before making a crucial mistake on the final lap and subsequently handing over victory to former teammate Jochen Rindt. Nevertheless, he finished in the top three twice over the rest of the season and retired at the end of the season as one of the most successful Formula 1 drivers of all time. Brabham returned to his native Australia and sold his stake in the company to Tauranac, with whom he initially started the company.

The team was subsequently sold to Bernie Ecclestone, under whom the team won 22 races and two drivers’ titles with Nelson Piquet behind the wheel. However, after he left the team at the end of the 1985 season, the team began to decline and at the end of 1987, Ecclestone announced that Brabham would withdraw from Formula 1. He ultimately sold the team to Joachim Luhti, a Swiss businessman, for an undisclosed amount, which is believed to be significantly more than what he paid back in 1972 to acquire the team. The Brabham name returned to the Grand Prix scene in 1989 before taking the covers for the final time in 1992.

OthersBruce McLaren, Stirling Moss, Giancarlo Minardi and Aguri Suzuki also deserve an honorary mention in this article. While these drivers didn’t win a world champion, they did start their own teams.