The changing priorities that caused an F1 giant's terminal decline

Nelson Piquet failed to qualify for the 1982 Detroit Grand Prix. A week later in Montreal he flashed across the finish line to win for Brabham – and, more significantly, for the first time with BMW’s turbo four-cylinder. That landmark couldn’t have been better timed, amid heightening tensions as one of Formula 1’s greatest team-manufacturer associations threatened to detonate before it had truly hit full boost. Nothing is more evocative of the cool 1980s than Brabham and BMW, mated together within Gordon Murray’s striking blue-and-white Parmalat wonders. But, for all the stylish achievements, this was a tempestuous, flawed partnership that could and should have achieved much more.

Even at its height a year later, when Piquet’s late-season momentum swept him to an irresistible second drivers’ crown, rarely was this a relationship that ran without some degree of angst. How else could it be? Bernie Ecclestone and his creative genius designer were impossible to please. They wanted everything now, as is the F1 way, and were frustrated by reliability that was a long way from bullet-proof. BMW’s directors, fresh to this hair-trigger world, had never experienced anything like it.

Dieter Stappert was the competitions boss caught between caustic Ecclestone and the BMW board. The Bavarian company had developed its sporting chops in 1960s saloon car racing, before its sweet two-litre four began to sing as the choix du jour in 1970s Formula 2. A former journalist, Stappert was hired as assistant to Jochen Neerpasch in July 1977 and was soon rounding up F1 drivers to race BMW’s M1 Procar in what’s now considered a cult grand prix support series. Turbo learnings in Germany’s DRM – the forerunner of the DTM – and in IMSA sportscar racing gave BMW the taste for a crack at F1, as Renault’s programme turned from paddock joke to serious off-the-dial potency. For a while, it seemed BMW would join forces with McLaren, newly invigorated by Ron Dennis whose Project 4 organisation built a portion of the Procars. But, when that plan turned to boardroom dust and Neerpasch headed for the door, Stappert found himself promoted to the hot seat.

Loyal to the BMW cause since 1957, Paul Rosche was the mastermind behind the F2 success and developed the M12 series of F1 engines based on a production block. That was the BMW way: one of the great F1 engines was directly linked to the road. Now, instead of McLaren, in April 1980 a collaboration with Brabham was announced. Murray had only just returned from an Alfa Romeo V12 cul-de-sac, yet he and Ecclestone – like the rest of the FOCA ‘garagistes’ – knew which way the wind was whistling when it came to Cosworth’s venerable DFV. The V8 powered Piquet to his first title in 1981 but, in the face of manufacturer turbo power, it was beginning to wheeze.

After the success of 1981, a new BMW motor was needed to match the turbo giants

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But Murray urged caution on BMW’s turbo. The BT50 had flown in practice at Silverstone as early as 1981, but Rosche’s powerplant was held back from the white heat of true competition until the start of 1982, in South Africa. Even then it was overshadowed by a distracting drivers’ strike over superlicence applications. Piquet was a ringleader and, upon return from the Johannesburg hotel where the drivers had holed up, found himself in the Brabham doghouse. He qualified second, dropped like a stone from the start, then spun out, while Riccardo Patrese had a turbo bearing fail. Hardly auspicious.

That weekend, Ecclestone introduced a new Brabham logo featuring a cross between a striking snake and scorpion. But the BMW partnership still lacked a venomous bite or sting. The team stuck with Cosworths for the next two races (Piquet was disqualified from victory in Brazil), then missed Imola as part of the FOCA teams’ boycott. Then, ahead of the Belgian GP at Zolder, BMW lost patience, issuing a threat to “terminate its cooperation” if Brabham didn’t start racing its engine. It did, and Piquet finished fifth – three laps down on John Watson’s winning McLaren. In Monaco, Patrese lucked in to a last-gasp win – but that was with a DFV. Then came Piquet’s Detroit disaster: a BMW blow-up six laps into the first session and a T-car that refused to pick up from low revs left him high and dry when Saturday was rained out. One can imagine the mood.

Running on pills and urging staff to bring their sleeping bags to work, Murray oversaw the conception, design and build of the BT52 in a frantic timeframe

In Canada, Piquet then suffered an almost immediate misfire, forcing a switch to the spare car. He qualified fourth for a race that required a restart after pole position winner Didier Pironi stalled, leaving poor Riccardo Paletti unsighted as his Osella rammed into the Ferrari, with fatal consequences for Paletti. So soon after Gilles Villeneuve’s death at Zolder, it beggars belief today that Pironi took the restart – but there was a world championship to win… Still, Piquet picked him off early and scored that vital victory, with Patrese second (albeit powered by a DFV). In Munich there were celebrations – and relief.

Always alive to an edge, Murray then devised a plan to turn F1 on its head. Mid-race refuelling hadn’t been a thing for decades, but idle chat turned into a solid strategy that starting on half tanks and soft tyres could make refuelling a game-changer. At Brands Hatch, the team wheeled refuelling apparatus into the pitlane, to the surprise of rivals. Sadly, BT50 unreliability prevented either Piquet or Patrese putting it to use, and the same was true at Paul Ricard where they initially ran 1-2. Hockenheim? No. Piquet was pushing to open a suitably sized gap, only to trip over Eliseo Salazar’s ATS – leading to his infamous physical assault of the hapless Chilean on live TV. Punching a driver in a crash helmet? It never works.

Things didn't always go to plan for Piquet and Ecclestone in 1982

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By now the potency of the Brabham-BMW combination was all too obvious – if only the cars would last. In Austria, Patrese went far enough to pit, taking on hard Goodyears and 24 gallons in just 15.6s (super-quick back then) to resume still leading… only for a failure to pitch him off a few laps later. BMW’s ignition and injection troubles contributed to a largely frustrating year, despite that Canadian breakthrough, as the season dwindled to a close.

Never mind. Murray had a small-tank BT51 ready to roll for 1983, fresh from Ecclestone’s assurances that ground-effect skirts were not about to be banned – only for Gordon to discover, along with the rest of F1 on 3 November, that they were. The combination of high-boost turbos and sucked-to-the-deck ground effects was awesome but unsustainable, plus the change pulled the rug on those pesky British FOCA teams. F1 cars would be flat-bottomed for 1983, throwing the teams into disarray – and now Murray and the Brabham boys put in a Herculean three-month shift that has gone down in F1 lore.

Running on pills and urging staff to bring their sleeping bags to work, Murray oversaw the conception, design and build of the BT52 in a frantic timeframe. While most teams cut and shut what they already had, he conceived one of the all-time great F1 cars. The sidepod-shorn delta-shaped stunner was designed to be simple and light, and repaid all the hard work immediately, Piquet scoring a great home win in Rio – complete with refuelling pitstop - just three months after the BT52 hadn’t even existed as a thought.

But this being Brabham, little thereafter was straightforward: at Imola, Patrese lost his own home win by dropping it at Acque Minerali, gifting the race to Ferrari’s Patrick Tambay to the tifosi’s joy and derision; a Piquet victory in Detroit was lost to a late puncture; at Hockenheim – by now in reversed blue and white colours – Nelson lined up Rene Arnoux, only for his BMW to grenade spectacularly; then at Zandvoort, title rival Alain Prost made an uncharacteristic error and took out Piquet on the brakes into Tarzan. So many lost points.

Piquet turned around sizeable deficit to Prost to triumph in 1983

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Three races left and Piquet found himself 14 points behind Prost – a chasm when a win netted just nine. But momentum had swung: Patrese took pole at Monza, only to blow a turbo, leaving Piquet to win as Prost retired; at Brands Hatch for the European GP, Patrese took the lead from Elio de Angelis at the start, only for the Lotus driver to ruin his race with an ill-timed move, leaving Piquet clear, with Prost second. Now, ahead of the Kyalami finale, the gap was down to two points.

In South Africa, Piquet qualified second to Tambay, but on superior Michelins streaked into the distance, made an early stop – Bernie’s idea – and remained out of reach. When Prost’s Renault turbo failed on lap 35, Nelson eased off, allowing Patrese to win on his final appearance in a Brabham (for now) and stroked home third to clinch his second title – BMW’s only F1 crown. A postscript was ugly allegations of illegal fuel brews, met with angry denials by Stappert – why would a major manufacturer take such a risk? – and a formal protest was never lodged. So now, what more could Brabham and BMW achieve together?

It’s rarely one thing that brings down a great team, but Ecclestone’s increasing focus on the bigger F1 picture was the most obvious catalyst for the decline

The answer turned out to be dwindling returns. Amid Renault recrimination, Prost pitched into an increasingly potent McLaren powered by a Porsche turbo disguised as a TAG. Mid-race refuelling was outlawed for 1984, leaving Murray with no choice but to expand 
the BT52’s successor, while a string of BMW engine failures blunted any hope of a title defence. Yes, Piquet won a pair of grands prix on the bounce, in Montreal and Detroit. But this year was all about McLaren, Prost and half-point champion Niki Lauda.

Taking Pirelli tyres for 1985, Piquet’s seventh (full) and last Brabham season, was a gamble in the wake of Michelin’s withdrawal – and one that didn’t pay off. Even with improved BMW reliability, the BT54 was only a contender when conditions played to Pirelli’s strengths (which was not often). In a heat wave at Paul Ricard, the Italian tyres came into their own as Piquet rose from fifth on the grid to score Pirelli’s first F1 win since 1957 – and what turned out to be Brabham’s 35th and last. How quickly the mighty can fall. From a pair of hard-earned titles, Brabham was sliding alarmingly fast into mediocrity – and Piquet knew it. He left for Williams and the prospect of a third title for 1986.

After the departure of Piquet, the downward spiral of Brabham really began in 1986

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It’s rarely one thing that brings down a great team, but Ecclestone’s increasing focus on the bigger F1 picture was the most obvious catalyst for the decline. In 1986 he took his place on the three-man F1 Commission beside blazered FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre and Ferrari’s Marco Piccinini, then a year later became FISA vice-president for promotional affairs. He was losing interest in running Brabham.

Still, Murray remained hungry to innovate his way to more success. All designers misfire from time to time, even Adrian Newey. But the timing of Murray’s on this occasion couldn’t have been worse. He stands by the concept behind the low-line BT55 (just 26 inches high from ground to the top of the bodywork), claiming an oil scavenging problem was its major undoing. But the car was a disaster – and then charismatic and quick Elio de Angelis, fresh from Lotus, became the first and only works Brabham F1 driver lost in action. His death knocked the stuffing out of the team.

What a senseless death this was. In a test at Paul Ricard in May 1986, the Italian was running alone on track when he crashed at the fast esses and the BT55 rolled over a barrier. De Angelis was trapped in the inverted Brabham, as ill-equipped marshals struggled to quell the threat of fire. De Angelis only had a broken collarbone and minor burns, but died in hospital the next day, a victim of asphyxiation. A shameful episode, one that shook F1 from its borderline criminal negligence on safety precautions at tests. Too late for poor de Angelis.

At the end of a winless year, Murray – the beating heart of Brabham – was gone. After 17 years, he felt done with F1, only for Ron Dennis and McLaren to coax him into a technical director role in which he’d claim (not without contention) vindication for the lowline BT55 in the 15-out-of-16-wins success of the MP4/4 of 1988. But his most significant achievement, arguably of his whole life’s work, would be the McLaren F1 supercar, revered as among the most pure expressions of automotive creativity – although for those of us with F1 in our soul we’d argue the case for the BT44 or BT52 above it.

Ecclestone's increasing focus on promoting the series, contributed to Brabham's decline

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Without Murray and Ecclestone distracted, BMW slipped away at the end of 1987 as F1 prepared to ditch its turbos for a new breed of normally aspirated power. Long-time Brabham servant Charlie Whiting followed his boss into a position of increasing influence at FISA. Now high and dry without an engine supply, the team sat out 1988.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have returned given what followed, although the BT58 of 1989 offered one final cameo worthy of fine Brabham traditions. Designed by Sergio Rinland and John Baldwin, the car blazed more often than not through the pre-qualifying sessions Brabham had been reduced to. Martin Brundle put in a fabulous drive at Monaco only to be undone by having to step out for a change of battery. Team-mate Stefano Modena stepped up and inherited the third place that should have been Brundle’s.

But the good work was undermined by ownership controversy. Ecclestone had brokered a deal for Swiss financier Joachim Luthi to take the reins, but he was gone amid a torrid financial scandal before the year was out. The Middlebridge Group picked up the baton but, by now, the team could barely manage a crawl, never mind a sprint. Hiring David Brabham, the youngest of Jack’s three racing sons, in 1990 should have been a lovely story – had he been given a more capable car.

Mark Blundell and Brundle put their faith in a Yamaha V12 in 1991, but saw little in return. Then there was the final whimper of 1992: Giovanni Amati’s failure to follow
 Lella Lombardi’s 1970s example and qualify as a female grand prix driver; and Damon Hill’s 
toil to 16th at Silverstone, four laps down on winner Nigel Mansell. It was Hill who brought the Brabham curtain down. His last place at the Hungaroring was the team’s final grand prix classification before a final dose of financial strife pulled this F1 ‘big beast’ into the realms of extinction.

Unlike Lotus, which followed it into oblivion two years later, Brabham has been spared half-cocked attempts at F1 revivals – and there’s even a happy epilogue to a story that ended so pathetically. After years of graft, David Brabham is now back in control of the family name and has even succeeded in returning the marque to race tracks, via the attractive BT62 supercar. Thanks to David, Brabham has a genuine shot at a bright future, even if its shape and form is yet to be fully defined. A return to F1? Unlikely. Who could live up to the stellar heights scaled by his ‘Old Man’ Jack and partner Ron Tauranac, then matched by Bernie Ecclestone and Gordon Murray in a wholly different style? Leave it in the past, where the best of Brabham remains safe from tarnish. We won’t forget.

Brabham name now lives on in the BT62

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images