62 replies to this topic

[Megatron]

Decent engine. Good drivers. What was the problem with the 1986 "skateboard" Brabham?

[Marcel Schot]

Decent engine? Don't think so. It may have been powerful, but it certainly wasn't reliable.

31 entries
7 engine failures
2 turbo failures
3 gearbox failures
1 water leak
1 fuel pump
2 electrical problems
1 brake problem

2 accidents
1 spun off
1 non starter

10 times finished

The non starter was Warwick in Austria, because Patrese drove his car, so we can safely assume 2 cars were killed that weekend In fact, make that three, since Patrese also retired in Warwick's car

The spin was of Warwick and was due to a brake problem

One accident was Warwick with Alboreto in Hungary, the other was Patrese with Tambay in Italy.

average grid position:
first 4 races : 14.3
second 4 races : 12.4
third 4 races : 12.2
last 4 races : 11.1
overall : 12.5

So it steadily improved in terms of qualifying speed (last 4 races were generally 7th to 10th place, but they didn't seem to bother anymore in the final race where they were 19th and 20th.

The answer in short : it had speed, but unreliability made any attempt to win futile.

[Flicker]

Yes-yes.. this car was the quickest among the others. For example at Austrian GP its top speed was 344.828 km/h.

[Marcel Schot]

Somehow the 2000 Arrows springs to mind

[Leif Snellman]

The BMW engine was tilted to make it lower. Obviously it did not like such treatment.

[Keir]

I think that they forgot that GP cars have to turn as well.

[Ray Bell]

Isn't this the car that brought de Angelis' tragic ending?

[Marcel Schot]

Ray : yes it is, hence 31 entries instead of 32 : In Spa only Patrese raced, since it was just a week after de Angelis' death and they didn't have a replacement yet or wanted to pay respect to Elio by not driving his car, I'm not exactly sure.

[William Dale Jr]

Perhaps that should be 30 - I read somewhere that at the British GP, Patrese drove the whole weekend in a BT54 that was hauled out of the Donnington Museum. Couldn't find out why.

That race in Austria was probably the best one for that car results-wise, with Patrese qualifying fourth. The rest of the weekend was a disaster, with Warwick crashing at over 200mph on the Friday after a Pirelli tyre failure. Luckily the monocoque was intact, allowing the team to rebuild the car overnight. The next day, Patrese's second qualifying run ended prematurely with a turbo fire which destroyed the back end of the car, which was the spare. On race day, Patrese's car arrived on the grid with 2nd and 3rd missing from his gearbox, so that's why he started in Warwick's car, since the spare was out of action.

The car had good top end speed, yes, but it had horrible pick-up coming out of the corners, which plagued it even at the Osterreichring, where most of the track is flat-out. It also had problems with it's transverse seven-speed gearbox, problems with cooling and oil scavenging.

I found all this info in the book, "Grand Prix 1986" by Nigel Roebuck and John Townsend, where there was an article called "The Penning of a Lemon". No need to guess what it was about.[p][Edited by William Dale Jr on 09-01-2000]

[Marcel Schot]

Thanks for the info William. Patrese indeed drove a BT54 at Silverstone. The why of that one remains unclear to me too

[Huw Jenjin]

Once again, I have to say that these things are relative. For a Brabham of the period it wasn't a success, but any car that acheives fourth on the grid in a GP this season would not be described as a lemon.
In the early nineties if a Brabham acheived that it would have been the return of the almighty.
It sounds to me as if the major problem with the car was it's power plant, both in reliability and driveability. Who knows if that had been reliable, may be that is what all Gp drivers would be lying on the following year.
The car was unloved basically, and after Elio crashed at Ricard, it was positively hated.

As a matter of interest when did commentators stop saying "On the Maserati" and change to "in the Maserati?"

[Barry Lake]

Originally posted by Huw Jenjin
As a matter of interest when did commentators stop saying "On the Maserati" and change to "in the Maserati?"

This is an interesting one. I don't have the answer, but I do know "on" came from the earliest days of motor racing when the drivers really did sit "on", rather than "in" the cars.
I think the older scribes and commentators continued using the expression long into the era of sitting "in" the cars, rather than "on".
Come to think of it, the transition period from "on" to "in" isn't easy to pick but it must have been waaaay back; 1920s at least.

[SB]

Wasn't the low line 86 car too unsuccessful that Brabham changed to use back the 85 car from mid-season?

SB

[Ray Bell]

Not sure about it all, either, but the comparison with horse racing again comes in, I feel. Murray Walker sometimes says it, I think, and certainly you will find it in virtually any fifties newsreel stuff. The Shell films, as well.

[davo]

I appologise in advance for the length of the post! My info is largely coming out of the technically brilliant "1000BHP Cars" by Ian Bamsey

Gordon Murray the designer was a pioneer of pull rod suspension, bespoke transaxle cases and carbon-carbon brakes. He was an early exploiter of underbody aerodynamics, composite chassis. Finally some of his specials included the fan car, surface cooling, water brakes, and underweight qualifying chassis

Brabham had some experience with non-Cosworth these being the Weslake V12 and Alfa Romeo V12

BRABHAMS EXPERIENCE OF TURBO TO BT55
late 1980
(BT49) converted cosworth

mid 1981
(BT50) BMW - planned to be used from Monza, 2nd row in qual at Silverstone but Piquet was quicker than himself in the Cosworth powered car. Piquet wins
championship exclusively Cosworth powered

1982
Pressure from BMW board sees turbos used at Kyalami - mech not elec injection due to problems with control Brabham revert to Cosworth after that. Fiasco sees BMW as a major manufacturer not associated with Ferrari, Renault but
rather with the largely British FOCA teams. Imola is boycotted by Brabham. Zolder BMW publically demands turbo Brabhams or association will cease. Continuing electric analogue control problems. Digital control being readied
for 1983

1983 (BT52) (35/65 weight distribution) Working towards a ground effect chassis BMW and Brabham caught out by flat bottom rules. BT51 abandoned for BT52 The weight distribution of 35/65 compared to an atmo wing car at 42/58.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP for first stock block since Brabham 67.

1984 (BT53) (36/64 wd) 1702mm/1626mm fr/rr track, 2934mm wheel base. Getting beaten by McLaren Porsche - McL better aero better race power.
"the most competitive year I'd ever had in GP racing - the car was quick everywhere. Overall, it was the
most competitive car but we didn't get the results we deserved. Engine and turbo reliability disappeared, and turbo failures were rife", "never really happy with original packaging" - Gordon Murray (GM)

Extra oil cooling at Rio,
Cooling/aero modifications at
Snetterton (practice)
Monaco,
Montreal,
Dallas,
Brands
Hmmm...

1985 (BT54) 1753/1651 track, 3023 wheel base.
Pirelli tyres. The extra wheel base pushed rear wing back into cleaner air, with less rear weight bias. No
good qualifiers in first half of season. Poor turn in and locking front brakes suggest underloaded fronts. Low front tyre temps working with distribution to get temps. High speed rear end instability - BT52/53/54 nearing end of
development. Certainly end of road aerodynamically. At Osterreichring Piquet 341kph, Prost at 309kph - Prost on pole - I am amazed by this when 10kph is now considered a big straight line advantage.

1986 (BT55) indentical dyno performance vertical and 72deg incline. Season on season Murray achieved 10% less frontal area, 30% gain in downforce, low CofG.

The Weisman 7 speed with cam and pawl diff. Late completion of car due to engine/gbox/chassis matching.

Rio high oil/water/charge air temps - cooling system revision leading to weight forward. (41/59wd)

"came out of corners and just stopped", "never picked up properly out of corners" GM

Slow turbo boost build up, but good cornering power.

BMWS EXPERIENCE OF TURBO TO BT55
early experience of blow by blocking oil return from head to sump - 4 scavenge pumps 1 head, 1 turbo, 2x sump.

1984 (BT53) most successful qualifier 850HP increase to 1000+ at >5bar - Paul Rosche, race figures 3.3 to 3.9 bar around >720HP
"everything was too hot" PR - added nose mounted oil radiator "no problem on 220L, more power than Porsche, lost half dozen races on turbo failure" -PR

1985 (BT54) more tightly packaged engine, better cooling - "a big step forward" - PR.
800HP race 950HP qual - officially. 5.3 to 5.4bar in qual perhaps as high as 1200HP Moved turbo supply from KKK to Garrett

1986 (BT55) "lots of wheelspin" PR

[davo]

So buried in that ramble what do I think is the cause of the non performance.

1 Wheel base and to a lesser extent track
2 C of G
3 Undercooling / overheating
4 A strained relationship between Brabham and BMW management

Murray was used to developing cars with huge rear weightings. The BT55 suddenly had the longest wheel base of any car, less rear weight and lower CofG. The dynamic weight on the rear must have been the lowest on the grid, hence the wheel spin. Long wheel base and low CofG conspire against weight transfer, the benefit was fabulous braking performance.

Concurrently turbo power was climbing and the delivery was sledgehammer, leading to wheel spin.

Along with the long wheel base, the relatively narrow track compromised traction. Oddly as Murray was committed to no rear sway bar to improve traction.

The non use of turbos and the whole "FIASCO" situation presumably did not lead to a technical relationship without sore points.

The BMW may always have been marginal on cooling, (or Murray optimisitic on how little he needed) as well as blow by and oil scavenging. Whatever the problem the 72deg lay down seems to have pushed it over the limit on at least one and perhaps all of these and the partnership seems to have been unable to define and resolve their problems.

Finally Piquet left the team leading to an internal hiccup in terms of car development.

It was a far sighted car - my all time favourite - and still substantially flawed.

However Murray would move on and design perhaps the most successful GP car ever! A car that owed alot to the flawed BT55 more perhaps than most people will ever know. But that is another post, another time, and hopefully another author.

[William Dale Jr]

That much is true, but isn't Steve Nichols credited for that car? I suppose, as you said, that is another post.

Regarding the Brabham, Murray said that the BT55 came from the result of all the aerodynamic shortcomings of the BT54. The idea was to get the wing into cleaner air without having to build it up higher. I think that the lower centre of gravity was also intentional, but I have never seen it in writing. The BMW engine was already reknowned for its 'lightswitch' power delivery, so I doubt that laying it down helped at all. McLaren and Honda had a good relationship, which probably explains why they would go to so much work to make their engine smaller to fit it into the MP4/4, but I can't be sure of that.

The BT56 was derived from the BT54 and not the BT55, but I don't think that was very successful, either, probably even less so than the BT55. I don't think Andrea De Cesaris even finished a race in that car, although that may have been more driver related than mechanical faults. Who was actually responsible for the BT56? I'm quite sure it wasn't Gordon Murray.

[John Cross]

The BT55 was a very brave effort that looks absolutely stunning from the side (good basis for the 'Radical F1 car', Huw!). According to Nye:

1) Pre-season testing was grossly disrupted by problems with the new Weismann transmission, as well as the chassis.

2) Gordon Murray was deeply affected by Elio's awful accident. It was the Brabham team's first fatality.

3) Brabham has suffered most from the loss of rear-wing sidestep singlets when they were banned for 1985 because the tall upright BMW had masked the rear wing centre. The lay-down engine would have solved this (apart from the other benefits of lower C of G and frontal area).

4) Like the 1958 Lotus 16, the engine wound its oil round in the crankcase and let it pool in the head and cam box. Scavenging had to be improved to release power otherwise being lost, and induction also seemed restricted. Also it ran very hot all season. BMW could not solve all these problems.

5) They had to use bevel-drive transmission, which made the car long (as davo says above), compromising nimble response in search of straightline speed. It was consistently slow out of corners, yet often fastest by the end of the straight, and was dogged all season by poor traction.

6) Two major rear suspension revisions were tried, in search of traction, and the front suspension was reworked to move the front wheels back and apply more weight to the rears. They also tried rising rate, but by mid-season they were too far behind with development.

7) At the British GP, Patrese drove an upright-engine BT54 but BMW were committed to Benneton (Mader) and Arrows - Brabham were committed to the 72 degree engine whether they liked it or not!

So the BT55 was very nearly another brilliant Murray design - instead it finished the Murray era (and, in the end, the Brabham marque). Very sad, especially for those who remember the gorgeous BT44 and the exploits of Pace and Reutemann, not to mention the Piquet days.

[davo]

William Dale Jr - You've hit the nail on the head, perhaps without realising. Gordon Murray goes on to McLaren and gets a compact engine without the BMW issues, and develops some cars with reasonable (?) results.

Desmo or some one with an equally extensive photo library might be interested in showing some side photos of the BT55 and McLarens of the following years.

I understood that the "lay down" driving position of the BT55 becomes universal in the following years. The McL dominance is certainly with great drivers, team prep, and car set up. However while the various McL cars seem to have been aerodynamically excellent with the best engine the consensus seems to be that they were only a fair chassis (i.e. mech grip). Dare I suggest BT55s with the engine issues resolved.

[Pascal]

From my personal collection:

The BT55 giving headaches to its mechanics.

Elio de Angelis, a few days before his death.

Ricardo Patrese trying to outrun my camera!

[aross]

I'm not sure of the reliability of this part of the tale, but someone told me once that there was a lot of trouble with the gearbox (6 speed?) since it was a one off and the gears were made by hand in a "mom and pop" machine shop.
I also heard that the tilted engine was great for aerodynamics and center of gravity, but lousy for getting cooling.

[Ray Bell]

I doubt that the gears were really that one-off... maybe the housing. As for 'mom and pop shop,' that's exactly what the Holinger factory was when they made the Australian version of Hewlands, and did so very successfully. Now they export gearboxes to all manner of countries, they being the standard wear in a lot of touring car series.
Back to Brabham, however, if they didn't use the otherwise universal Hewland gears in a bespoke housing, then they were using the Weismann gears from America, another maker that was hardly 'mom and pop' in makeup. Weismann had a very unusual diff centre, for one thing, and it worked exceptionally well. [p][Edited by Ray Bell on 09-07-2000]

[Marcel Schot]

Maybe this page is worthwhile in this thread:
http://www.weismann.net/brabham.html

[Ray Bell]

Interesting that Pete Weismann takes the credit for the laydown concept... very informative... I'll go back and correct my spelling now...

[BT52]

This thread brings a tear to my eye....

To add a bit more about BMW wins:
1982 - Canada, Piquet wins a week after failing to qualify!!
Patrese is second in the cosworth powered sister car (which fails to prove any turbo advantage..)

1983 - Rio, Piquet wins using a mid-race fuel stop
- Monza, Piquet wins following Patrese blown turbo
- Brands, Piquet again after Patrese and DeAngelis tangle.
- Kyalami, Piquet in control, nurses car to 3rd to win champ, Patrese wins race.

1984 - Most of season - BOOM!
- Canada - Piquet wins but his foot is barbequed by radiator in the nose.
- Detroit - Piquet wins after restart. Original start sees Mansell try to squeeze Lotus into space for bicycle between Prost and Piquet.

1985 - Paul Ricard - Wow Pirelli's work here!! Piquet wins.

1986 - Most powerful F1car ever? Benetton wins with Berger in Austria

and erm..thats it.

I always thought the 1988 McLaren looked like the BT55.
I saw the BT55 next to a BT54 at Donington museum and was amazed at the massive wheelbase of the 55, much longer than the 54

[KzKiwi]

Interesting that Weismann claims that he iniated the lay down engine concept for a F1 car. I thought that Colin Chapman initiated this with his work on the Vanwall and Lotus Front engined GP cars? (something tells me that M- Benz were also tinkering with inclined engines too!)

Weismann also refers to the 1973 'Laydown Lightning' that was designed for Indy. Let us not forget the Watson and Kurtis Indy roadsters of the late 1950s. The best example of a tilt front engined roadster surely must be the 'Belond Special'. Does anyone have a pikkie of the 'Belond' that they can post on this thread?

But then again, I guess it is in your interpretation of degrees, minutes and seconds as to when an engine becomes a 'laydown' as opposed to a 'horizontal'. Isn't it?

[Roger Clark]

i don't think that Weismann would claim to have iniated the laydown engine for the BT55. gordon murray conceived the idea and commissioned a new gearbox from Weismann as hte standard Hewland could not be adapted to the off-set crankshaft. This wasn't just a case of laying down an existing engine; BMW did considerable redesign work to make the engine suitable for this installation.

Murray (or Ecclestone)was very good at persuading their engine suppliers to design a new engine at short notice. THey did the same with Alfa romeo when the Flat12 was no longer suitable for the ground effects chassis of the BT48.

This was in contrast to Chapman and the Lotus 16 who inclined an exisitng engine much to the despair of Coventry Climax. He soon discovered that it did no good at all to the lubrication system and reverted to a conventional installation. Daimler-Banz, of course, designed the M196 from the start to be installed almost horizontally. The Vanwall had a conventional upright installation.

[Ray Bell]

On the theme of nothing new under the sun... I think we could find others where the engine was laid over, even prior to the W196.

[Roger Clark]

Of course there's nothing new! Wolseley built cars with horizontal engines for the Gordon Bennett races in 1903-5. THe engines appear to have been mounted transversely, and some were described as "horizontal opposed" which I would take to be a flat-4, others merely as "horizontal". I believe that te latter were straight fours, but I am not sure. THey were designed by Herbert Austin, who left afteer 1905 to form his own company. Austin enterd a team for the 1908 Grand Prix but I don't knnow whether they had horizontal engines. THey had 6-cylinders, which was adanced for the time.

Beyond that, I can't think of any GP cars with inclined engines until the W196, so DB may have been the first.

After the W196, there was also the Scarab.

[KzKiwi]

The 30 HP engined racing Wolseleys were horizontally opposed 4 cylinder engines, meaning that their horizontal cylinders were on either side of the crankshaft centreline. These were mounted transversely in the chassis, therefore 2 pots were facing forward and 2 pots were facing rearwards.

As such, surely this is not the same as tilting a conventional engine, albeit with revisions, on its side i.e with all cylinders above the crankshaft centreline, as is the case with the BT55 and the Lotus 16, etc.

It is true that as the engine size of the horizontal engined Wolselys increased, details became sketchy on the engine layout. What is known is that they were at least of the 4 cylinder variety. If they continued with the transverse engine mounting, surely they would have had to retain the horizontally opposed engine on width restrictions alone? The last horizontal engined racing wolsely was made in 1905. Perhaps Hans can assist here, especially as it is in his speciality period!

I lurched across some information on the 'Bullet' racing cars of Alexander Winton. 'Bullet 1' was a 4 cylinder design and 'Bullet 2' was an 8 cylinder design, achieved by linking two of the 4 cylinder engines together. These were built as part of Americas representation in the respective 1902 and 1903 Gordon Bennett races.

The engine configuration consisted of all cylinders being inline. When installed in the chassis' the cylinders were mounted horizontally, with the crankshaft running parallel with the chassis side rails. This must make Alexander Winton the first user of such the cantilever or 'laydown' configuration for racing.

[Ray Bell]

Done well there, KZ, and it will be interesting to see if Hans has more.
I thought of the Scarab, but didn't mention it because it was six years after the M-B. It had to be laid over, I would say, because of engine height?
This is an issue for anyone, by the way, who wants to build a really slick Clubman car these days, especially to the regs we have here.

[Roger Clark]

I appreciate that the early Wolseleys had horizontally opposed engines. However, they ran a 96HP car in both the 1904 and 1905 which had a straight four engine. This is from Lord Montagu's book,gordon Bennett

[Ray Bell]

Two questions:
1. Was it laid over?
2. Does it matter in relation to this thread?
By the latter, I think that since the twenties the cars have been so far divorced from the pre-war stuff that there is no real point in considering comparisons.

[Roger Clark]

I believe it was laid over. i don't suppose it matters in the grand scheme of things, but it's interesting none the less

[KzKiwi]

What it does highlight is that most 'trends' have been tried before - that is the link.

Just looking at some of the angles that engines were tilted on makes interesting reading (for me anyway) e.g

1986 Brabham BT 55, 18 degrees
1957 Belond Special, 18 degrees
1954 M-Benz W196, 37 degrees
1958 Lotus Type 16, Initially 62 degrees but revised to 17
degrees after Climaxes protests of 'too much tilt'
1965 Mickey Thompson Challenger, 30 degrees

The above angles are all relative to the horizontal plane, with the exception of the Lotus, and possibly the Thompson Challenger.

And there were others as well - the Scarab, as previously mentioned, and the 1952 Cummins Diesel Indy racer (Kurtis chassis). I am not sure what angles these engines were laying at but I would presume, from photos of each, that they were closer to the BT 55 angles than the Lotus 16 angles i.e almost horizontal! Anyone know?

Which brings me to my next query. If we compare the Belond to the Brabham (same tilt angle), why was one so successful and the other not so? Obviously there are a few reasons for this but I wonder if the Belond engine lasted because of a cooler environment, being front engined, as opposed to the BMW in the Brabham being hidden from any decent airflow in the back of the BT 55?

[deangelis86]

http://www.geocities...odeangelis.html

The 1986 Brabham BMW BT55



For the 1986 season, Brabham designer Gordon Murray penned the BT55 which aimed to take several radical steps forward with essentially one design. The original idea was given to Murray by Nelson Piquet, who in his Formula 3 days recalled how he used to duck down as low as possible in the cockpit to gain extra speed by achieving better airflow.

The first plans for the BT55 began midway through the 1985 season, and a wooden mockup was constructed and presented to Nelson Piquet, who rumour has it was rather concerned over the driving position which required the driver to be in a reclined position with their chins resting on their chests. What sort of influence this had over Nelson Piquet's decision to leave Brabham and join the Williams Honda team for the 1986 season we will never know.

For the project to realise it's full potential, vast amounts of funding were necessary from Italian sponsors Olivetti and Pirelli, and both were keen to see Italian drivers recruited to fill both seats. Prior to this decision, Ayrton Senna or Niki Lauda (whom Ecclestone had tried to persuade out of retirement on the plane back from the 1985 Australian GP) could have filled one of the driver slots, but the decision was made to recruit Riccardo Patrese and Elio de Angelis. Although both drivers had vast amounts of experience, when the full complexity of the BT55 was revealed to the Motor Racing Press, some already voiced their doubts over the technical ability of both drivers. Major changes to the engine and gearbox were necessary in order for them to fit into the lowline car.

When early testing began in Rio, the cars suffered badly from overheating as well as the Weissman designed 7-speed gearbox tending to disintegrate at an alarmingly fast rate. In addition to this, it was discovered that canting the BMW engine over at an angle was causing it to suffer from oil scavenging problems as well as being very slow to release its full power. This early season disruption was to prove very costly to the Brabham team, and by the time the 1986 season got underway at Rio the BT55 chassis had undergone major changes and revisions and had still not been fully run in, and only managed to complete a handful of laps during the practice sessions.

During the race, Patrese retired early on but Elio managed to finish in a distant 8th place albeit 3 laps down and missing 2 gears. Clearly it was not the start that the team had hoped for, and things really got no better as the BT55 proved to be a very difficult car to drive. It suffered from such crushing poor engine response out of the slow corners that the improvement gained in extra downforce from the low line design proved to be negligible. The loss of Elio in testing one of the BT55/2 chassis at Paul Ricard proved to be a fatal blow to team morale and severly dampened Gordon Murray's appetite for the project.

By the time of the British Grand Prix the team had collected a mere 2 points, and resorted to bringing back one of the 1985 upright BT54 chassis in order to evaluate the performances between the two cars. In fact the team were happy to go back to using the BT54 for the rest of the season, but BMW could not provide sufficient upright engines. Later in the season however, there were signs of encouragement for the team as the BT55 proved better suited to the faster high speed tracks such as Hockenheim and Monza where Patrese qualified well and ran strongly. A quick look at the speed trap at Monza told the whole story, slowest of all out of the corner but fastest at the end of the straight.

For all the revisions to the chassis, the gap between Brabham and the rest did not close and by the end of the season Murray had departed the team. The relationship between Ecclestone, BMW and Olivetti was strained beyond repair and although in 1987 the "upright" BT56 car ran well at times, the team was in terminal decline and by 1988 had been sold.

In 1988 however, Gordon Murray returned with the McLaren team and the "low down" design was adopted by Steve Nichols all conquering MP4 chassis that gave Ayrton Senna his first F1World Championship.
- The design had been finally been vindicated.

[deangelis86]

In response to the earlier question regards the BT56, it was designed by John Baldwin/Sergio Rhinland. It was certainly a more capable car than the BT55 and one would have to agree a definate improvement.

It suffered more than anything from being prepared by an increasingly unenthusiastic Brabham team. With top team brass leaving virtually every weekend during 1987, BMW were also fast beginning to lose interest in the whole project.

A shame really, because the car qualified very well usually in the top ten in Patrese's hands. Looking at the qualifying performances, there was little between the two drivers most of the time.

Here's a handful of stats for you all:

Qualifying and results in Brackets

PATRESE 11 DE CESARIS 13
PATRESE 7 (9th) DE CESARIS 13
PATRESE 8 DE CESARIS 13 (3rd)
PATRESE 10 DE CESARIS 21
PATRESE 9 (9th) DE CESARIS 19
PATRESE 12 DE CESARIS 11
PATRESE 11 DE CESARIS 9
PATRESE 11 DE CESARIS 7
PATRESE 10(5th) DE CESARIS 13
PATRESE 8 DE CESARIS 10
PATRESE 9 DE CESARIS 10
PATRESE 7 DE CESARIS 13
PATRESE 9(13th) DE CESARIS 10
PATRESE 8(3rd) DE CESARIS 10
PATRESE 8(11th) DE CESARIS 10
MODENA 15 DE CESARIS 10 (8th)

[MattFoster]

deangelis86,

I was going to say something about how the 1987 Brabham BT56 was an improvement on the BT55 but I don't need to now as you covered it very well in the post before this one.

Cheers
Matt

[deangelis86]

Thanks Matt, I also thought that the BT56 was another extremely attractive looking Brabham.

Ironic that my favourite 2 Brabham cars proved to be undoubtedly the worst!

[MattFoster]

BT56 was a trully Beautiful Car.

I might be biased as two of my all time favorite drivers drove it.

Cheers
Matt

[deangelis86]

Ahaa! - A secret Andrea de Cesaris fan rears his head..!

I've always liked and rated both Riccardo and Andrea. Both nice guys, and real racers. Took Andrea a while to mature fully and it was really nice to see him finish his career on a high with Jordan and Tyrrell, and likewise with Riccardo with Williams.

(sigh) They just don't make drivers like those guys anymore....

[MattFoster]

deangelis86,

I have never been ashamed to say I was an Andrea fan.

When I started watching F1 here in Australia back in 1981 there were 3 drivers that caught my attention. Elio de Angelis, Andrea de Cesaris and Riccardo Patrese. I was a fan of all three but because of all of the negative press Andrea got back then I liked him the most.

Cheers
Matt

[Maldwyn]

Talk about negative press Matt, how about the Patrese's first full season? The fact that he recovered from this traumatic start to his career to become one of the most respected drivers on the grid is a remarkable story.
I followed his career since the debut of the Arrows team and have admired his talent and character ever since.

[jmcgavin]

Is it true that De Cesaris crashed his McLaren in every race in 1981, its the impression I get

[jmcgavin]

sorry forgot my other point here, i would argue that in some respects the BT55 was the point where opinion changed on Ricardo. Certainly in 85 he was constantly slated for blocking drivers. This all seemed to change in 86 leading to his Williams drive. By then the general opinion on him seemed to have changed completely

[deangelis86]

As far as I recall, it is not true regards De Cesaris crashing his McLaren in every race. I seem to remember that he had at least a points finish in 1981?


Regards Patrese - yes I think that 1986 was the year he really matured. You can look back on most drivers and say that one particular season or a race really proved to be a defining moment. Looking at Mansell for example, probably 1985 at Brands was his.

[Maldwyn]

After his nightmare at Alfa/Euroracing in 84/85 Brabham offered Patrese a lifeline at a point when his F1 career could have been over. Bernie Ecclestone was a great help both in taking him back to Brabham and brokering the deal which allowed him to race the Williams-Honda in Australia at the end of the '87 season which, in turn, led to the most successful period of his career.

[MattFoster]

No, Andrea didn't crash in every race in 1981. He did have 17 accidents/crashes in that season but that included practice/qualifying sessions.

He did finish 6 of his 14 starts in 1981 including 1 points finish at Imola. He had about 6-7 crashes including one that was definitely not his fault when Gilles lost it big time at the old Woodcote chicane and took out both Jones and Andrea.

He was accident prone in 1981 but he was only 21 years old and a bit out of his depth. He was a changed man in 1982/1983 at Alfa Romeo where he could have won a couple races but for the Alfa engines thirst. He only crashes in 3 races in 1982 and 1 in 1983. Certainly not the stats of the crash machine he is made out to be.

Last time I looked Phillipe Alliot now holds the record for most accidents in a season.

Cheers
Matt

[Barry Boor]

There is an awful lot of technical stuff on this thread. Now I am not trying to be funny, or flippant, but might the relative failure of this pretty car have been something to do with
a) the fact that the drivers couldn't see where they were going, and
b) the driving position was so extreme that they simply could not get the best out of themselves.

I know this is probably rubbish, but very few people seem to consider how the drivers actually felt in the car.

[deangelis86]

No Barry, its not a silly thing to ask.

What I do know is that the driving position was so unusual with the drivers chins resting on their chests, that both drivers suffered from breathing difficulties at various times during the 1986 season.

I don't think that visability was such a factor, as the cockpit was very exposed so there were no problems with sight as far as I am aware. Anyone else?