Brabham BT49

Formula One racing car

The Brabham BT49 '/b//r//æ//b//əm/ is a Formula One racing car designed by South African Gordon Murray for the British Brabham team. The BT49 competed in the F1 season of 1979 to F1 season of 1982 Formula One World Championships and was used by Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet to win his first World Championship in F1 season of 1981. The car was initially designed in 1979 as a short notice replacement for the team's Alfa Romeo engined BT48, after Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone decided to end his relationship with the Italian engine manufacturer. The BT49 was created in only six weeks using elements of the BT48 chassis together with the widely used Cosworth DFV engine. The monocoque chassis is made from aluminium alloy and carbon fibre composites. The car was fitted with controversial hydropneumatic suspension and water cooled brakes at different points in its life. The BT49 was updated over four seasons taking a total of seven wins, six poles and 135 points. Seventeen were eventually built, most of which survive today. Some are used successfully in historic motorsport; Christian Glaesel won the 2005 FIA Historic Formula One Championship driving a BT49D.

The BT49 was created by South African designer Gordon Murray for the Brabham team during the 1979 season of the Formula One motor racing World Championship. The Brabham team had been competing in partnership with engine supplier Alfa Romeo since 1976 and won races in the 1978 season. However, the team's 1979 car, the BT48, was not a great success. Alfa Romeo entered their own Type 177 and Type 179 cars in Formula One Grands Prix that summer, helping to convince the Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone that the partnership was over. Motorsport author Alan Henry writes that Ecclestone did not want his team to take second place to an Alfa Romeo works team, and that the team designing Alfa Romeo's cars was drawing on Brabham knowledge. Alfa's engines were powerful, but had proved troublesome and according to Henry, "the days during which pure power was the main criterion had temporarily vanished by the start of 1979". The chassis is slightly longer than that of the BT48, and is new from the cockpit back with revised sidepods and a structural fuel tank reduced from capacity to match the reduced fuel consumption requirements of the DFV compared to the Alfa Romeo. This allowed a reduction in dry weight over the BT48 of and of when fully fuelled. In its original form, the reduced pressure area under the car was sealed off with sliding skirts which rose and fell with the movement of the car to ensure no air could leak under it. According to Murray, the aerodynamics were the car's great strength: "It had more [downforce] than any other car and it all came from the ground effect. We ran the car with no front wing at all and scarcely any at the back." The suspension, which controls the relative motion of the chassis and the wheels, is similar to that of the BT48: it features double wishbones front and rear, with the springs and dampers mounted on the chassis out of the airflow and activated by pullrods. Anti roll bars are fitted front and rear. The BT49's disc brakes are mounted outboard, within the wheel hubs, and are activated by a single four piston brake caliper for each wheel. For most of the BT49's career, it used conventional steel brakes. Lighter reinforced carbon carbon discs and pads, a technology that Brabham had introduced to Formula One in 1976, were used in 1981 and 1982; The wheels are of diameter, although occasionally wheels were used at the front. Slick tyres were used in dry conditions and treaded tyres in the wet. Three chassis, included the two modified BT48 units, were built for the end of the 1979 season. Two of these were re used during the 1980 Formula One season, alongside seven new chassis. The engine is water cooled, with water and oil radiators mounted in the left and right sidepods respectively. Like its contemporaries, the BT49 uses the engine as a fully stressed structural component, carrying all loads between the front and rear of the car: the front of the engine bolts directly to the integral fuel tank and the back of the engine attaches to the car's rear suspension and gearbox. The Ford Cosworth engine integrated into the car much more easily than Alfa Romeo's large, heavy and inconsistently sized units: Murray described returning to the DFV as being "like having a holiday". After his first test session with the car, Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet commented that he had always believed "that the DFV was quite a rough, coarse engine, but it felt quite the opposite to me. After those Alfa V12s it felt smooth and willing to rev." By 1982, most teams still used the DFV, but BMW, Ferrari and Hart had joined Renault in employing turbocharged engines: Ferrari's 1982 turbocharged V6 engine produced around , while the DFV's output had remained at around 500 bhp. Realising just how competitive the BT49 was on its debut at the Canadian Grand Prix in 1979, Cosworth would supply Brabham, along with Williams special "evolution" DFV engines which had a slightly shorter stroke and higher revving capacity than a standard DFV, producing around 500 to 510 BHP at over 11,000 RPM for the 1980 season. Throughout 1980 the BT49 was regularly one of the quickest naturally aspirated cars timed on the speed traps (meaning only the turbocharged Renaults were usually faster in a straight line), a combination of the low drag aerodynamically slippery bodywork and the development Cosworth engine. With Williams taking the decision from the 1980 French Grand Prix to effectively sub contract "in house" to John Judd to modify the DFVs used by Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann, Brabham effectively become the favoured runner in 1980 of development Cosworth engines, a situation which would continue throughout the rest of the 1980 season and the entire 1981 season, which effectively promoted Nelson Piquet to the status as the favoured "works" driver for Cosworth, a relationship that ultimately concluded in triumph with the 1981 Drivers World Championship. The BT49 was initially fitted with the same gearbox the team had been using since 1977: a six speed unit designed by Brabham using internal components from Hewland and a casing cast by Alfa Romeo.

Since 1995, BT49s have competed regularly in the FIA Historic Formula One Championship. The championship is open to cars that competed in Formula One in the DFV era, between 1967 and 1985, in several classes to allow for equal competition. The BT49 competes in class C, for post 1971 ground effects cars. In 1999, Motor Sport magazine tested a BT49D from the series featuring from its developed DFV at 11,200 rpm, Christian Glaesel won the 2005 FIA Historic Formula One Championship driving a BT49D and Joaquin Folch won the 2012 championship in a BT49C.