13 replies to this topic

[tonicco]

This is the thing that has been puzzling me for a while:

I read (quite some time ago) about El Chueco driving a BRM P15 at the 1953 Formula Libre Trophy race, held at Silverstone.

Can anyone confirm this for me?

And did Fangio drove for BRM on any other time?

When were the races of the Formula Libre Trophy held? In-between seasons?

Does this mean that Fangio drove for BRM after his accident in Monza '52 and before the start of the '53 F1 championship (where he drove for Maserati)?

Thanks in advance,

[fines]

Fangio raced the V16 BRM at the FLibre race supporting the 1953 British GP, also at Goodwood Sep '53, and the Albi GP that year and in 1952, as well as the Ulster Trophy in 1952 (the day before his Monza crash).

[Gary Grant]

Fangio did indeed finish 2nd in that race held on the 18th July 1953.
He also finished 2nd in a BRM in a shared drive with Gonzales at the Albi GP on the 31st May that year, and competed in a race with the V16 at Goodwood in September.
Fangio drove for Maserati, BRM and lancia at various points that year so he certainly wasn't 'tied' to one marque.
That's all the info I have (from http://www.owenmotor...mv16/brmv16.htm) - others will be able to elaborate....

[Wolf]

And Fangio did some testing in P15 with Moss. Monza, I belive it was... From what I gather it must've been in September '51.

BTW, was El Chueco as impressed with the car and BRM as Maestro?;)

[Michael Müller]

Below photo Goodwood Cup 1952 with 2 P15 at the front row. Have no info about the drivers, can anybody confirm that # 5 may be Fangio?

[oldtimer]

I believe no.5 has Gonzales in the cockpit, ready to scare the BRM team by demonstrating the awful handling whilst he kept his boot firmly on the throttle. My understanding is that Gonzales, like Fangio, didn't seem to mind a good wrestle as long as the engine had some poke, which the P15 certainly had as long as you kept your boot in it.

I believe that that is Reg Parnell in car no.6.

Before the days of 'press the button to go', as you can see

[David McKinney]

Fangio had seven races in V16 BRMs:
1/6/52 Albi Grand Prix (F1) DNF
7/6/52 Ulster Trophy (F1) DNF
31/5/53 Albi heat (F1) 1st
31/5/53 Albi Grand Prix (F1) DNF
18/7/53 Silverstone libre race - 2nd
26/9/53 Woodcote Cup (libre) Goodwood - 2nd
26/9/53 Goodwood Trophy (libre) Goodwood - DNF

[Roger Clark]

I think that Michael Muller's picture is actually the woodcote Cup on 27 September 1952. THe front row of te grid was Gonzales, Farina (Thinwall spl), Parnell. Wharton also qualified a BRM for the front row but was a non-starter. Farina started slowly but can be seen in the moke behind Parnell. The Goodwood Trophy, held the same day had the three V16s on the front row. Farina non-started; the crown wheel stripped as he crossed the finishing line of the woodcote Trophy

[Gil Bouffard]

On September 27, 1952, BRM entered three P15's at Goodwood. They were driven by Frolian Gonzalez, Reg Parnell and Ken Wharton.

For both the Goodwood Trophy and the Woodcote Cup. They were 1st. Gonzalez, 2nd. Parnell and Wharton.

Wharton was a non-starter for the Woodcote Cup.

I have a paperback of BRM by Raymond Mays and Peter Roberts. Its falling apart, but the information is still good.

Gil

[Michael Müller]

Roger, you're right, that's clearly the TWS # 4. Will change my archive accordingly.

[karlcars]

These excerpts from my book on Fangio explain how this came about:

The only major option [foir Juan in 1952] was an intriguing one: the British Racing Motor, BRM. While battling with González at Silverstone in 1951 Fangio had seen the two low, light-green cars soldiering to finishes in fifth and seventh, split by Sanesi’s Alfetta. At the Italian Grand Prix Reg Parnell had put his BRM on the second row of the grid, faster than de Graffenried’s Type 159, before it was withdrawn. Its ear-splitting exhaust note and complex V-16 engine had made a good impression. With Alfa gone, the BRM looked to be the only car capable of challenging the V-12 Ferraris.

“As early as January 1952,” recalled BRM engineer Tony Rudd for Doug Nye, “while Alfa Romeo dithered over whether or not to withdraw finally from Formula One, Fangio was actively looking for another berth.” Not surprisingly, BRM was looking in Fangio’s direction at the same time. It made contact with him through none other than Eric Forrest Greene, winner of the 500 miles of Rafaela in 1928. Greene had carried on racing in Argentina and added importation of Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin cars to his portfolio.

Related Nye in his BRM history, “Greene suggested that Fangio should be offered 50 per cent of the starting and prize money, either full travelling and living expenses or a fixed expenses payment each month, plus a small retainer fee, which ‘would help negotiations as Alfa Romeo had never done anything in this respect’ apart from giving him a new road car.” Greene made it clear that González would be part of the package as well. “After some negotiations,” wrote BRM head Raymond Mays, “Fangio agreed to fly to Britain and test the car. I felt that to have Fangio test it, even if he did not sign up, would be valuable; if he could not drive it, nobody could.”

Meanwhile two BRMs were being tested at Monza by Stirling Moss and British hillclimb champion Ken Wharton [note: not Fangio]. Fangio told Greene he was wary of trying the car there, only a few kilometres away from his old Alfa Romeo stamping grounds. If Alfa did make a comeback he wanted to be part of their plans; testing a British rival under their noses might not be the best way to keep their friendship.

BRM filed preliminary entries for the first Formula 1 race of 1952, held in Turin’s Valentino Park on 6 April, for Fangio, Moss and Wharton. Starting money of £1,500 was offered for one of them, so the team at Monza set about preparing a single BRM for Moss to race at Turin. Accompanied by Greenes senior and junior and Argentine Club officials, Fangio and González arrived in Europe in time to get to Turin to see how their potential ride, the BRM, fared against the latest Ferraris in this non-championship race. They were dumbfounded to find no sign there of the British car. The most notorious no-show in modern Grand Prix history had done it again.

Bizarrely, Raymond Mays had defied the Turin Auto Club and overruled his chief engineer, his team and an irate Stirling Moss to order the best BRM back to its home base at Bourne in Lincolnshire so that Fangio and González could test it. So eager was he to engage the Argentines that he overlooked the fact that BRM was their only option if they wished to continue at the top level of Formula 1. Mays had more bargaining power than he seemed to realise.

On 8 April at a wet Silverstone the two Argentines tried a BRM for the first time. Until then, Raymond Mays wrote, “every driver who had handled the BRM had treated it with some measure of respect. Some drivers had plainly been scared by its high speed and high engine revolutions; all had been wary of it. Fangio was the first man who was complete master of it. He got in the BRM and shot away, straight up to 11,500 rpm as though he had driven the car a score of times. Great blades of water were thrown up from each wheel as he explored his way up the straights in a series of tail-slides alternating with lightning corrections.”

Juan Fangio returned the compliment. “On the straight it was like a wild beast,” he told Roberto Carozzo. “Twelve thousand revs! You should have heard the way it buzzed along! Anyone who drove it got out of it half deaf. And you had to be the kind that enjoyed gear changes. This had to be done continually, to ensure that the engine speed did not fall below 7,000 revs. That was the point at which you could call on its real power.”

He asked for a higher seat position to give better visibility and had another request as well: “One of the first things I said to Mays and the British technicians was that they would have to fit air vents to ventilate the cockpit, otherwise the driver's legs would roast.” In fact Parnell and Walker had roasted at Silverstone in ’51. By May, with these changes Fangio was lapping BRM’s private test track a stunning ten seconds faster than any other driver had managed.

[oldtimer]

OT, but is that Mike Hawthorn in the Cooper-Bristol alongside Farina?

Re the noise of the P15: I remember it just took 2 of them to drown out the rest of the grid at Goodwood. And the Goodwood chicane became a painful place to spectate. Painful engine sounds are now the norm, but not in the early '50s, when the competition revved at 4-5000 rpm less than the V16s.

[tonicco]

Hello to all, and thanks for all the precious info.

In the meanwhile, I've been sent a photo of Fangio driving a BRM P15 at Silverstone in 1953, at the exact race that I've read before and that started my curiosity over this subject...

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by oldtimer
OT, but is that Mike Hawthorn in the Cooper-Bristol alongside Farina?

No it's Alan Brown. Mike Hawthorn was in hospital following his Modena accident and didn't compete that day.