Posted 14 November 2000 - 03:58
Indeed yes, PDA. Chapman used a similar system in his design of the Vanwall chassis.
I want to thank Felix for e-mailing me copies of his, and Don's, articles on the BRMs. He that rules most things in the computer world had decreed that I cannot access the Demon-racer's link, and Felix responded very quickly to my request. Linking to another thread, it goes to show, again, what a fine thing you have started Don, and what a great bunch of people support this forum.
One of the things that struck me about this thread was the difficulty some people were having relating to why BRM stuck with a braking system that caused so much trouble, and why they contradicted the early chassis design principles of the car.
Some of the reasons are hard to understand from a current viewpoint of F1 racing, when new chassis' are built every year. The '50's were not the times of the big spenders, and even Tony Vandervell used major components from the earlier cars when Chapman designed a new chassis for the 1956 season.
I am not a F1 historian, but trying to look at 1950's cars from the 21st century is not easy, and the record books and specification tables don't capture the whole story.
Now I have not been a good historian (sorry !)in examining all my sources re the chassis/brake issues before making posts. They are DSJ's Racing Car Reviews for 1956,'57, and '58, the Mays and Roberts' book.
The chronology they show is:
1955: Short chassis (7ft 3in. wheelbase), air struts front & rear
mid-1956: chassis lengthened by 3in
Sept.1956: Double stressed skin applied around cockpit area, air struts at rear replaced by leaf spring.
1957,mid-season: coil spring units used front & rear, rear chassis redesigned.
1958: new chassis, stressed skin structure eliminated. Servo removed from braking system after Goodwood meeting.
Now all this says to me that the original chassis, as well as the suspension and braking system, were pretty deficient when compared to the opposition, and the chaps in their tweed jackets were pretty slow in coming to terms with the problems.
The original engine was another matter, as anyone witnessing Hawthorn jack rabbit away from all the opposition at Silverstone in 1956 could testify. The engine was designed to run at 9000rpm, but at Monaco in 1956, they discovered that large valves were being distorted by temperature gradients. Redesign was necessary, and it took 2 years to get maximum revs up to 8,250rpm on Avgas.
The thought occurs to me that had BRM ever found a way to get back to the 9,000rpm limit by 1958, the opposition would have been puffing hard to keep up with them. Had they discovered the cooling problem which was identified in 1960, would they have had the valve distortion problem? Or was it poor head-design problem?
Another "What if"?
The original design was labelled as relatively simple, but I'm not sure a 4 cylinder engine revving at 9,000rpm wasn't over-ambitious for those days. The 4 cylinder Vanwall had a limit of 7,400rpm on alcohol fuel. Both were subject to bad vibration problems, but Vanwall did a much better job at managing theirs.
Felix talks of being mystified by Peter Berthon's design decisions, and I think the same could be said of Tressillian's approach to the engine. It all looks like the P15 again, without the noise (PR and engine).
How does the historian capture the bad management factor? It is self-evident looking at the records, but how do you convey a sense of it?
A walk around the paddock in those days could capture some of the sense. So here is one.
Practice at Goodwood in 1957 (groan,groan). Mid-session, the cars are in the pits needing attention to the brakes. Salvadori, no.1 driver, is amusing himself driving a Cooper. Work is finished, with chaps in tweed coats in close attendance. One of chaps in a tweed coat fastens the bonnet clips (English car). Chief mechanic observes. Remember, in '56, a bonnet came off in testing and nearly collected Hawthorn's head.
Mays then inquires about Salvadori's whereabouts. "On the track," is the reply, "In a Cooper."
Mays, with a certain amount of huffiness, "Then call him in."
Everything I'd read about BRM up to then fell into place.
Another part of that history that is now hard to relate to is the nationalism that was part of the sport for that period in the '50's. We fans were just longing to see the green cars beat the red. The roar that went up when Hawthorn in the BRM pulled out to rocket past Fangio at the International Trophy Meeting could be heard on the other side of the Silverstone circuit.
Equally, Italians wanted to see their beloved red rule the day, and they did not give up easily. It was just a different dimension to the racing of that time, and it drove the chaps in tweed coats as well as the autocratic Tony Vandervell.
