The Brabham BT53 was a
Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
car designed by
Gordon Murray
Ian Gordon Murray (born 18 June 1946 in Durban, Union of South Africa), is a South African-born British designer of Formula One racing cars and the McLaren F1 road car. He is the founder and CEO of Gordon Murray Automotive.
Early life
Born t ...
for the
Brabham team for the
1984 Formula One season
The 1984 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 38th season of Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Formula One motor racing. Drivers and teams competed in sixteen Grands Prix for the World Drivers' and World Constructors ...
and was a development of the
BT52 which had carried the team's lead driver
Nelson Piquet
Nelson Piquet Souto Maior (, born 17 August 1952) is a Brazilian retired racing driver and businessman. Since his retirement, Piquet, a three-time World Champion, has been ranked among the greatest Formula One (F1) drivers in various motorspo ...
to the championship.
Car
The car was almost identical to the final development version of the car, the BT52B, but featured larger sidepods for improved cooling, and the turbochargers and intercoolers were repositioned for better fuel efficiency as refuelling stops were now banned, leading to the car having to carry an enlarged (220 litre) fuel tank. The turbocharged
BMW M12
The BMW M12/13 turbo was a 1499.8 cc 4-cylinder turbocharged Formula One engine, based on the standard BMW M10 engine introduced in 1961, powered the F1 cars of Brabham, Arrows and Benetton. Nelson Piquet won the FIA Formula One Driver ...
engine now produced around in qualifying trim, de-tuned to for the races, making it the most powerful car ever seen in F1 at the time. This power allowed Piquet to record the fastest speed trap of the 1984 season when he clocked on the 1 km long straight at the old
Kyalami
Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit (from ''Khaya lami'', ''My home'' in Zulu) is a motor racing circuit located in Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa, just north of Johannesburg. The circuit has been used for Grand Prix and Formula One races and has ho ...
circuit during qualifying for Round 2 of the championship in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
.
Like all other cars in Formula One in 1984, the rear wings featured smaller winglets on each side of the end plates for extra downforce pioneered by
Ferrari in 1983.
Drivers
The car was driven by reigning world champion Piquet who was joined at
Brabham by the Fabi brothers
Teo and
Corrado in a shared drive allowing older brother Teo to honor commitments in the
North American
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...
–based
Champ Car World Series
Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...
for
Forsythe Racing
Forsythe/Pettit Racing was an American racing team that competed in the Champ Car World Series owned by Gerald Forsythe and Dan Pettit. The Champ Car effort ceased operations after the 2008 unification of North American open wheel racing.
Histor ...
(Teo Fabi had started racing Champ Car for Forsythe in 1983 and sat on the pole for the
1983 Indianapolis 500
The 67th Indianapolis 500 was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Sunday, May 29, 1983. After finishing second three times (1977, 1978, 1980), winning the pole position twice (1977–1978), and being the fastest qualifi ...
, being only the second rookie in
500 500 may refer to:
* 500 (number)
* 500 BC
* AD 500
Buildings and places
* 500 Boylston Street of Boston
* 500 Brickell in Miami
* 500 Capitol Mall in Sacramento
* 500 Fifth Avenue
* 500 Renaissance Center, one of seven buildings in the GM Renaiss ...
history to do so). Corrado replaced Teo three times in 1984, the first being
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
when Teo was racing in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
. The other two were in North America as Teo missed both the
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
and
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
Grands Prix while racing at
Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
and
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
respectively. Teo Fabi also missed the season ending
Portuguese Grand Prix
The Portuguese Grand Prix (''Grande Prémio de Portugal'') is a motorsports event that was first held in 1951 as a sportscar event, and then intermittently disappearing for many years before being revived again. In 1964 event was held as a spo ...
when he was racing the Champ Car race at
Laguna Seca Laguna Seca may refer to:
* Laguna Seca Formation, a geologic formation in California
* Laguna Seca (Mexico), see Convention of London
* Laguna Seca (Santa Clara County), a seasonal lake in California
* Laguna Seca, Texas, United States
* Rancho ...
. Fabi was replaced in Portugal by
Manfred Winkelhock
Manfred Winkelhock (6 October 1951 – 12 August 1985) was a German racing driver. He participated in 56 Formula One Grands Prix (with 47 starts) between 1980 and 1985, driving for Arrows, ATS, Brabham and RAM Racing, with a best finish of fi ...
who had raced the first 13 races of the season for the
ATS team.
The reason Brabham ended up with the Fabi brothers sharing the drive was reportedly due to the team's major sponsor, Italian dairy company
Parmalat, wanting to maintain an Italian driver alongside Piquet as
Riccardo Patrese
Riccardo Gabriele Patrese (born 17 April 1954) is an Italian former racing driver, who raced in Formula One from to .
He became the first Formula One driver to achieve 200 Grand Prix starts when he appeared at the 1990 British Grand Prix, and ...
had left the team for Alfa Romeo. Team boss
Bernie Ecclestone settled on Teo Fabi as the best Italian available, but due to his commitments in Champ Car, the arrangement was made to employ the brothers (Corrado had driven for
Osella
Osella is an Italian racing car manufacturer and former Formula One team. They participated in 132 Grands Prix between 1980 and 1990. They achieved two points finishes and scored five championship points.
Early days
Named after its founder V ...
in 1983). It was rumoured that, on Piquet's suggestion, young Brazilian driver
Roberto Moreno
Roberto Pupo Moreno (born 11 February 1959), usually known as Roberto Moreno and also as Pupo Moreno, is a Brazilian former racing driver. He participated in 75 Formula One Grands Prix, achieved 1 podium, and scored a total of 15 championship p ...
was to be Piquet's team mate before Parmalat stepped in with their demands while
John Watson also confirmed that he had been close to signing with the team after being dumped by McLaren who had signed
Alain Prost
Alain Marie Pascal Prost (; born 24 February 1955) is a French retired racing driver and Formula One team owner. A four-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, from 1987 until 2001 he held the record for most Grand Prix victories until Micha ...
.
Season summary
Although Piquet won twice (in Canada and
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
), and scored several podium places in the second half of the season, the
straight-4cyl BMW engine, or more specifically the turbochargers rather than the engine itself, were now becoming unreliable. The team suffered turbo failures repeatedly in both qualifying and races despite efforts by Gordon Murray and BMW engineers to improve the car and engine, and Piquet did not score his first points of the season until his win in Round 7 in Canada. The
John Barnard
John Edward Barnard (born 4 May 1946, Wembley, London) is an English engineer and racing car designer. Barnard is credited with the introduction of two new designs into Formula One: the carbon fibre composite chassis first seen in with McLar ...
designed
McLaren MP4/2
The McLaren MP4/2 was a Formula One car produced by McLaren for the 1984 season. An iteration of it, the MP4/2B, was used in the 1985 season, and a slightly updated version, the MP4/2C, raced in the 1986 season for McLaren. It was closely bas ...
with its
Porsche built
TAG V6 turbo was dominant, with drivers
Niki Lauda
Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in Formula ...
(the 1984 World Champion), and
Alain Prost
Alain Marie Pascal Prost (; born 24 February 1955) is a French retired racing driver and Formula One team owner. A four-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, from 1987 until 2001 he held the record for most Grand Prix victories until Micha ...
(2nd to Lauda by only ½ a point), winning 12 of the season's 16 races between them, and saw to it that Piquet could not retain his championship. He scored another win at the grueling Detroit Grand Prix a week after his Canadian triumph, but Piquet would not win again that year.
Reliability was found in the second half of the season, which allowed Piquet to eventually finish fifth in the title hunt. The saddest aspect was that the BT53 was, in Piquet and Teo Fabi's hands, regularly faster than the
McLarens, as Piquet's nine pole positions throughout the season attested (Prost was the only McLaren driver to qualify on pole during 1984, doing so three times). The car was very quick in qualifying on light fuel loads, but its race pace was negatively affected particularly on full fuel loads. More reliability from the BMW turbo might have given Piquet a realistic chance of defending his championship. Indeed, in the first seven races before scoring his win in Canada, Piquet retired with engine, electrical (as in
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
) or turbo failure. Often early in the season when he retired, Piquet had either leading the race or was in a position to challenge for the lead.
The BT53 was replaced by the
BT54 for .
Complete Formula One results
(
key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)
Notes
{{F1 cars 1984
Brabham Formula One cars
1984 Formula One season cars
ja:ブラバム・BT52#BT53