The Rise of Britain’s First True Works F1 Team — BRM
Throughout Formula 1 history, it has generally been possible to separate teams into two basic categories.
The first of these categories has been referred to by various names — some of them almost deliberately derisive. The great Enzo Ferrari for example used the term “Garagistes” or “Assembliatores”, while the teams in question have typically preferred the less disdainful “Privateers” or “Customer teams”.
Whichever term you refer to them by, the names all make the nature of these teams clear. They are the comparative minnows of F1, who construct their own chassis but purchase their engines from third parties as they lack the resources to create their own. Particularly in the past, such teams were often typified by the kind of small, dingy garages that Ferrari’s nicknames for them referred to.
This is contrasted by the second type of F1 team, of which Ferrari is the archetypal example. These are the works teams, who pride themselves on the fact that they build the entire F1 car themselves, including the all-important engine. This has traditionally afforded the advantage of being able to specifically tailor the engine and chassis to work well together.
This, along with their typically larger size than privateer or customer teams and arguably more professional approach has led many to regard works teams as the serious contenders in Formula 1, and indeed statistics would agree with that view to some extent.
For much of Formula 1 history, works teams have had the lion’s share of success. This is a trend that continues even to this day, as teams which produce their own engine such as Mercedes have dominated in recent years.
There is another historical trend regarding the two types of teams that is more pertinent to this article though.
Generally speaking, works teams have typically been based in continental Europe, with marques such as the aforementioned Ferrari and Mercedes, as well as others like Renault and Alfa Romeo having homes there.
The Garagistes of the past on the other hand were usually small — some might say “plucky” — British teams. While this image is something of a stereotype, the further back in F1 history you go, the more true it often turns out to be.
There have been notable exceptions to this stereotype, however, and it is one of those exceptions that this article will explore.
That team was British Racing Motors — or BRM as it was almost universally referred to in its time on the F1 grid.
BRM was founded in the late 1940s by a man called Raymond Mays and his associate Peter Berthon. Mays in particular had been an ever-present in the motorsport world since the 1920s as a driver but also had a role in the manufacturing side of the sport after helping to set up English Racing Automobiles, which produced cars for talents such as Dick Seaman (control your laughter, ladies and gentlemen).
While ERA’s cars showed promise in pre-war motor racing, they were typically unable to compete with the larger continental grand prix cars such as those from the likes of Mercedes Benz and Auto Union.
Many European teams of the time enjoyed hefty government funding, with the aforementioned German teams, in particular, having immense resources at their disposal due to the Nazi government of the time’s patronage of motorsport as a way of increasing national prestige and, more disturbingly, pushing their Aryan supremacist ideology.
British teams such as ERA on the other hand were usually private affairs run by small groups of enthusiasts and were therefore much smaller in scope. Mays dreamt of fielding a true works team in the same vein as the continental efforts but in the climate of the 1930s that remained unfeasible.
Mays’ hopes of a British grand prix team were soon given a boost from a rather unexpected source though, as the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 brought a halt to worldwide motorsport. The fact that such a destructive event could prove to be an opportunity may seem implausible, but the changes to British society which arose from the war proved to be exactly what Mays was looking for.
Despite having been smashed by air raids for much of the war, Britain came out of the conflict on the winning side, and awash with a heady mixture of patriotism and engineering expertise honed during wartime.
Mays recognised that his grand prix team would require just the type of manufacturing expertise that had been perfected during the war, and knew that his chance had arrived. He duly sold off his old ERA outfit to start again from scratch — laying the foundations for his new ‘British Racing Motors’ team in late 1947.
The aforementioned patriotic fervour was useful to Mays too, as it provided the perfect way to finance his new team. Mays and his associates set up the ‘British Motor Racing Research Trust’, and encouraged British companies with relevant expertise to join — stating that Britain fielding a competitive grand prix team was a matter of national prestige. The approach was a success, with 37 firms joining the BMRRT and pledging their support to the BRM project by December 1947.
Thereafter, the project captured the public imagination. With constant coverage in the motoring press, support for BRM grew from the initial 37 backers to a staggering 160 different companies. With such a wealth of resources now at their disposal, Mays and BRM could get to work on creating a car which could be a true contender on the re-emergent grand prix scene, which by 1948 had begun to adopt the first set of Formula 1 regulations.
Despite the hefty backing and the manufacturing prowess of the firms involved, the build process of the first BRM car was continually beset by delays. The same press coverage which had helped garner unprecedented support also worked against the team by placing them under intense (albeit well-meaning) scrutiny and making all setbacks high-profile affairs.
Nonetheless, the car — christened the Type 15 — gradually took shape, and by late 1949 it was ready to run. In keeping with the project’s prominence in the public imagination, a launch event was held in front of a throng of press photographers on the 15th December 1949, with Mays himself being the first to drive the new machine in public.
The Type 15 was based upon principles pioneered by the famous “Silver Arrows” which had dominated the European Grand Prix Championship in the 1930s after design documents for those cars fell into the hands of the British after the war. While this allowed BRM to incorporate known-good technology, it also meant that the Type 15 was of 1930s vintage in many aspects.
Despite the relative lack of cutting-edge features, the Type 15 was still undeniably a beast of a machine. While its 1.5-litre supercharged engine was actually smaller in terms of displacement than those in Formula 1 today, its V16 layout seems truly foreign compared to today’s 6-cylinder units.
The monstrous powerplant was mated to a chassis with essentially no downforce to speak of, with focus instead being placed on creating a streamlined shape which in many cases often induced lift as opposed to keeping the car on the road. This was not helped by the tyres, which in typical fashion for the day were incredibly skinny.
These factors soon proved to be the least of BRM’s issues though, as while the car was able to do show runs in front of a mass of press photographers, it was far from race-ready as trouble with the V16 engine’s ignition system continually plagued the car.
This meant that the team missed the start of the new Formula 1 world championship in 1950, and some non-championship outings late in the season were BRM’s only involvement in the first season of the new era of Grand Prix racing.
Nevertheless, when the Type 15 did finally run it showed some promise. The car won in the hands of Reg Parnell at Goodwood in September 1950 — albeit in a field which included few of the heavy hitters of that year’s F1 championship, and over a race distance much shorter than a typical grand prix of the day.
1951 therefore needed to be a year of tangible progress if the project’s many backers were to keep faith, and to the team’s credit, they did deliver a notable step forward. The early months of 1951 were much the same as the previous year, with participation largely restricted to smaller events, but by July the car’s ignition issues had been solved, and confidence was high enough to allow the car to make its first appearance in a championship race at Silverstone.
There was a combination of excitement and trepidation at the prospect of BRM’s first big-ticket event. Some hoped it would see the glorious vindication of the whole project, while sceptics believed that it would be a national embarrassment ending in a cloud of expensive smoke.
What the two Type 15s ended up delivering didn’t really fall into either of those categories. The two cars did not run in time for qualifying which certainly didn’t look promising, but were nevertheless allowed to start the race at the back of the grid. In the race though drivers Reg Parnell and Peter Walker pushed on admirably, with both cars lasting the full 90 laps and finishing in 5th and 7th places. While it hadn’t quite been the glory that Mays had hoped for when he founded the team, it had nevertheless proved some doubters wrong.
That British Grand Prix appearance would be the only championship showing of the BRMs in 1951, which didn’t seem like a particularly good return on the £150,000 (approximately £4,000,000 in today’s money) which had been spent getting the project off the ground. Results would be needed soon, but the already somewhat outdated Type 15 was getting more and more long in the tooth as the years passed by.
The team were set to press on regardless and continued working on solving the car’s issues and increasing its competitiveness. Mays and his team also scored a huge coup late in the year when they managed to secure the signature of reigning F1 champion Juan Manuel Fangio to drive for the nascent British team in 1952.
Just when things seemed to be looking up though, a hammer blow to the team’s ambitions hit home…
It was announced that from 1952 the F1 world championship would be run to Formula 2 regulations as a result of a lack of competitive Formula 1 machinery. Most of the field in 1950 and ’51 had been comprised of pre-war cars, with the dominant Alfa Romeo 158 and 159 “Alfettas” for example having in essence been a design from 1938.
Alfa had announced their withdrawal from the sport after 1951, and few other than BRM had constructed new cars for the Formula 1 regulations of the time. The cheaper and less complex Formula 2 was therefore deemed a more attractive option to try to foster a healthy competitive landscape.
For BRM though, it was a sucker punch. With the Type 15 being designed to F1 regulations, the team were left unable to compete in the world championship for the foreseeable future.
BRM nevertheless soldiered on and contended what few non-championship Formula Libre and Formula One events were available in both 1952 and 1953, with Fangio showing his undeniable quality by claiming several pole positions in the Type 15. Unfortunately though, he attained no notable results in the unreliable machine and soon left to drive for Maserati instead.
Without the publicity of world championship participation and with progress still proving slow, several of the team’s backers lost faith and quietly withdrew their support. The future of the entire project looked in jeopardy, as with enthusiasm dwindling BRM had to be put up for sale in October 1952.
Fortunately, the team was bought out by Alfred Owen — one of the original 37 BMRRC members— who took it upon himself to carry the baton for British motorsport. The team was officially renamed the Owen Racing Organisation, but it continued to be known as BRM to almost all until its dissolution, and Mays stayed heavily involved in the running of the team.
Following the sale, another glimpse of light came in 1954, as a new set of Formula 1 regulations finally came into place, ending the brief spell of the world championship running to F2 rules.
The new regulations would not allow BRM to resume use of the Type 15 though, as its 1.5 litre supercharged engine did not comply with the new formula which allowed 2.5 litre normally aspirated engines or just 750cc supercharged engines. This was something of a blow, but with the lumbering V16 car already being rather outdated, a new design would probably have been needed even if the Type 15 had remained legal.
Work on that new car began relatively quickly, and hope was reignited that BRM could still fulfil its mission statement of being a worthy representative of Britain on the world stage.
Development of the new car — christened the P25 — and its new 2.5 litre 4 cylinder engine was smoother than with the Type 15, but it nevertheless still took nearly two years to complete. The team therefore contended the 1954 and 1955 seasons with customer cars to buy time until the definitive new BRM chassis was ready.
After a brief appearance towards the end of 1955, the new car’s time finally came in 1956, with much praise being heaped upon its slick, modern appearance and its new straight-4 engine which meant the car retained its status as a true British works effort.
There were still certainly gremlins with the new cars though, which were on particularly concerning display at what was supposed to be the car’s glorious debut at the 1956 Monaco Grand Prix. Both drivers were plagued with engine issues, and after a few laps in qualifying the team packed up and decided more work on the car was needed before it could make its race debut.
Only at the sixth race of the season at the Silverstone circuit, where the Type 15 had made its championship debut five years earlier did the P25 finally compete in anger.
The promise was there though, but was tempered once again by reliability issues. Future world champion Mike Hawthorn qualified the new car third behind only Fangio’s Ferrari and the Maserati of fellow home hero Stirling Moss.
This was then compounded when both Hawthorn and his teammate Tony Brooks made brilliant starts and shot into the lead, in perhaps the first concrete display of real promise from the team.
Sadly it could not last, and Hawthorn was passed for the lead on lap 15, before retiring 10 laps later with gearbox problems. Brooks was even less fortunate, as a rear suspension failure pitched him into a fiery crash from which he was lucky to escape alive.
The situation with the P25 remained much the same for a while, with moments of pace tempered by reliability issues. Starting in 1958 though, things started to come good for the Lincolnshire-based team.
For the first time, the team contested something approaching a full season, with the P25s missing only the opening race of the year in Argentina and the Indy 500 which was run to different regulations and was only nominally part of the world championship.
That year also saw the team score meaningful points in the world championship for the first time, with that year’s Dutch Grand Prix proving a particular high point as drivers Harry Schell and Jean Behra came home in second and third positions, which helped the team to finish 4th in that year’s brand-new constructor’s championship.
Schell was retained for 1959, while Behra was replaced with F1’s first Swedish driver Jo Bonnier, who had shown promise in a third entry towards the end of the 1958 season. Despite Schell’s seniority within the team, it was the Swede who would provide BRM’s most head-turning result yet, as at the same Zandvoort circuit which had yielded the best result of 1958, he put in a drive for the ages.
The team tested at Zandvoort in the run-up to that year’s grand prix, with none other than Stirling Moss at the wheel, despite Moss driving for Rob Walker Racing. As it happened, this was something of a prelude to Moss running his own privately entered P25s in future races in 1959.
Whatever his reasons for the doing test, Moss came away pleasantly surprised, with the P25 proving well-suited to the demands of the smooth Dutch track. With the compliments of one of the best drivers in the business, the BRM team could go into the race in May quietly confident of their chances.
Nevertheless, when qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix came around the whole F1 circus was astounded when BRM’s Bonnier claimed pole position on the second day of qualifying with a lap which nobody — not even championship leader Jack Brabham in his game-changing rear-engined Cooper — could better.
Despite the surprise pole, few expected the P25 to last in the race, with BRM’s cars by now having a fairly well-earned reputation as unreliable. Bonnier again confounded expectations though, and after an action-packed race which saw him duel extensively with both Brabham and Stirling Moss, he outpaced the former and outlasted the latter to win by 14 seconds at the chequered flag.
While the long-awaited major race win had finally been achieved, there was little time to celebrate at BRM, as the very same season also showed that the P25 had no future.
Cooper had demonstrated for all to see that a rear-mounted engine was the way forward, and with the P25 design dating back to 1954 it was distinctly last-generation. While it was a major blow to BRM that their car had been rendered obsolete just as it began to become competitive, something new would undeniably be needed going forward if the team hoped to finally win their long-awaited championship.
What BRM delivered as their first car of the rear-engined era of Formula 1 which continues to this day was the P48. While the new car did leap on the rear engine trend started by Cooper (and Auto Union in the 1930s), in many ways it was a conservative design and borrowed much from the old P25 chassis. A major leap to the front of the grid with such a car seemed unlikely.
On the driver side of the team, things were fairly positive, at least initially. Race winner Bonnier was retained, while American Dan Gurney joined from Ferrari to drive the team’s third car. The most significant signing though would prove to be the team’s new second driver, as the suave Briton Graham Hill joined the team from Lotus. Hill would go on to be a key part of BRM in the future.
In the present though, things at BRM did not look great. While the P48 showed flashes of pace, it was generally outperformed by other teams — perhaps unsurprisingly given it was based upon a six-year-old design. A single podium for Hill at the team’s favourite Zandvoort stomping ground was the only notable result of the year.
That Zandvoort race was also the catalyst for a major shake-up within BRM. While the result had been the best of the season on paper, it was perhaps the worst race of the season for the team everywhere else. For one, third driver Dan Gurney was involved in a tragic incident during the race when his P48’s brakes failed, sending him into an unavoidable crash which sadly killed a spectator.
This only added to growing disquiet among the BRM’s drivers who vocally criticised the quality of the team’s engineering, and eventually resolved to go on strike unless radical changes were made.
An emergency meeting was called immediately after the race, and when it had ended the team came out the other side inherently different.
Control of much of the running of the team was wrested away from founders Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon by owner Alfred Owen, and was instead given to a man called Louis Stanley who had been Owen’s right hand man since 1959. Stanley in turn gave greater responsibility to engineer Tony Rudd, who had been with the team since the very start, but would now benefit from greater oversight of the whole design process. The changes were radical, but in time would prove themselves to have been very much necessary.
In the meantime though, what immediately followed this mini rebirth was yet another setback. In September 1960 a proposal was put forward to change Formula 1 engine regulations yet again, with the new rules reducing maximum displacement from 2.5 to 1.5 litres, and supercharged or turbocharged engines being outright banned.
Several teams including BRM staunchly opposed these changes, and banded together to attempt to block the proposed rule changes. Unfortunately for them though, the FIA simply brushed these complaints aside.
Just as in 1952, BRM had nothing in the pipeline to comply with the new rules, and had to scramble to come up with something to contest the new season. Hurriedly, they produced an update to the P48 termed the P48/57, but in doing so they were forced to use an engine that was not constructed in-house for the first time. The works team status which was a core part of BRM’s identity was therefore compromised.
Ironically though, the very rule change which had blindsided BRM ushered in their golden era. The 1961 season with customer engines proved predictably miserable, but it also prompted Alfred Owen to make even more radical changes than in 1960 in hopes of getting the team up to scratch for 1962.
Tony Rudd was given total overall control of the team for 1962 with Stanley and Owen both taking a backseat when it came to operations, and co-founders Mays and Berthon being deposed entirely. It was to be the last chance for the team, with Owen making clear that if results did not materialise he would seriously consider winding up the entire operation.
The team responded creditably to what was effectively an ultimatum from Owen. Back at their factory in Bourne, work was underway on both an updated chassis and crucially an all-new engine to restore the works status of the team, with the chassis designed by Rudd and the engine design ironically coming from the now-deposed co-founder Peter Berthon.
As it happened, the combination of the updated chassis, Graham Hill at the wheel, and the powerful new 1.5-litre engine in particular proving to be a revelation. The 1962 season was therefore defined by battles between the two emergent British talents after the retirement of Stirling Moss a year earlier.
On one side was Jim Clark in his revolutionary monocoque Lotus 25, with the introspective Scot and his unreliable but rapid machine proving to be the quickest combination in grand prix racing.
Despite Clark’s speed, he faced firm opposition from none other than BRM’s Hill, with the newly-updated P578 and its new custom-built engine proving to be a good match for the Lotus and its customer Coventry Climax power unit. Finally, BRM had a car that could be a contender not just on the odd occasion, but at every race.
The quality of Clark and Hill and their respective cars was undeniable, as the two Britons effectively monopolised the victory dais in 1962. Only two wins that year eluded the pair — both of which slipped away because of reliability problems for the Lotus and BRM.
In the end, it was reliability which played a large role in deciding the championship between Clark and Hill too. Contrary to what you might expect given BRM’s reputation for unreliability up to that point though, it was Hill’s metronomic finishing record which helped him to clinch the title.
His P578 failed to reach the chequered flag just twice, with both retirements occurring while in the lead of the race and within ten laps of the finish. Clark on the other hand could only dream of such dependable machinery, as he had five major reliability issues over the season’s nine races.
Hill duly claimed four wins, including three of the season’s last four races, and comfortably secured both the driver’s title and the constructor’s crown for BRM at the final race of the year in South Africa.
With that, over a decade on from their founding and after overcoming countless setbacks, British Racing Motors had finally done it. While Cooper had beaten them to the accolade of the first British team to win an F1 championship, they had demonstrated emphatically that an all-British works team that manufactured its own engine could triumph over giants like Ferrari, and had vindicated the belief of the likes of Raymond Mays.
BRM’s quest was far from over though. Having reached the summit of Formula 1, their next focus would be on trying to maintain their front-running position for years to come.
That, however, is a story for another time…
