British Racing Motors

BRM

Full name	British Racing Motors
Base	Bourne, Lincolnshire, England
Founder(s)	Raymond Mays Peter Berthon
Noted staff	Alfred Owen Louis Stanley Jean Stanley Tony Rudd
Noted drivers	Jo Bonnier Tony Brooks Ron Flockhart Dan Gurney Mike Hawthorn Graham Hill Niki Lauda Reg Parnell Clay Regazzoni Pedro Rodríguez Harry Schell Jo Siffert Jackie Stewart John Surtees Maurice Trintignant Jean-Pierre Beltoise
Formula One World Championship career
First entry	1951 British Grand Prix
Races entered	197
Engines	BRM, Climax
Constructors' Championships	1 (1962)
Drivers' Championships	1 (1962)
Race victories	17
Pole positions	11
Fastest laps	15
Final entry	1977 Italian Grand Prix

BRM as a Formula One engine manufacturer

Formula One World Championship career
First entry	1951 British Grand Prix
Last entry	1977 Italian Grand Prix
Races entered	200 (189 starts)
Chassis	BRM, Lotus, Gilby, BRP, Scirocco, Brabham, Matra, McLaren, Cooper
Constructors' Championships	1 (1962)
Drivers' Championships	1 (1962)
Race victories	18
Podiums	65
Points	499
Pole positions	11
Fastest laps	14

British Racing Motors (BRM) was a British

became world champion. In 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1971, BRM came second in the constructors' competition.

History

BRM was founded just after the

trust fund

.

This proved to be an unwieldy way of organising and financing the project, and as some of the backers withdrew, disappointed with the team's slow progress and early results, it fell to one of the partners in the trust, Alfred Owen of the Rubery Owen group of companies. Owen, whose group primarily manufactured car parts, took over the team in its entirety. Between 1954 and 1970 the team entered its works F1 cars under the official name of the Owen Racing Organisation. Berthon and Mays continued to run the team on Rubery Owen's behalf into the 1960s, before it was handed over to Louis Stanley, the husband of Sir Alfred's sister Jean Owen.

A factory was set up in Spalding Road, Bourne, Lincolnshire, behind Eastgate House, Mays' family home, in a building called 'The Maltings' (the adjacent former ERA works, vacated in 1939).^[1] Several people involved with ERA returned to the firm to work for BRM, including Harry Mundy and Eric Richter. The team also had access to a test facility at Folkingham aerodrome.

BRM V16

The first post-war rules for the top level of motor racing allowed 1.5-litre supercharged or 4.5-litre normally aspirated engines. BRM's first engine design was an extremely ambitious

was seconded to BRM from Rolls-Royce to develop the supercharging system and remained involved with BRM for nearly twenty years.

The

Commission Sportive Internationale

announced in 1952 that for 1954, a new engine formula of 2.5 litres naturally aspirated or 750 cc supercharged would take effect.

Meanwhile, the organisers of all the grands prix counting for the world championship elected to run their races for

375 being a particular highlight of the British scene.

Crisis

The

also backed the construction of a Cooper-BRM to gain access to the engine.

The P25 was becoming highly competitive just as the rear-engined Cooper started to become dominant; the P48 was a quick reaction to this, using major components from the P25 but in rear-engined format. The P48 was revised for the 1.5 L rules in 1961, but once again BRM's own engine was not ready and the cars had to run with a Coventry-Climax four-cylinder unit in adapted P48 chassis, achieving very little in terms of results.

The firm moved to a purpose-built workshop on an adjoining site in the spring of 1960, but when the 1.5-litre atmospheric Formula One regulation was introduced in 1961, Alfred Owen was threatening to pull the plug unless race victories were achieved very soon.

Champions

By the end of the

never materialised.

As part of Owen's attempt to make BRM pay its way, the V8 engine was sold to privateers and appeared in a number of other chassis during the 1.5 L formula, particularly in private Lotus chassis and in smaller marques such as BRP.

A number of privateers acquired 1961 and 1962 BRMs during this period, including Maurice Trintignant and Scuderia Centro Sud; these cars continued to race for many years.

The monocoque

two-litre V8; once again BRM were not ready for the start of a new formula and the old cars continued to be used, even on occasion after the H16 was ready.

BRM H16

For 1966, the engine regulations changed to permit three-litre atmospheric (or 1.5-litre supercharged) engines. BRM refused Peter Berthon and Aubrey Woods's proposal to build a V12, and instead built an ingenious but very complicated engine, designed by Tony Rudd and Geoff Johnson, the H16 (BRM P75), which essentially used two flat-eight engines (derived from their 1.5L V8) one above the other, with the crankshafts geared together.

BRM found the H16 (2.75 x 1.925 in, 69.85 x 48.895 mm) attractive because it was initially planned to share design elements and components with the successful 1.5-litre V8. While the engine was powerful, it was also heavy and unreliable - Rudd claimed that his drawings were not followed accurately and many of the castings were much thicker and heavier than he had specified (when Lotus took delivery of their first H16 it took six men to carry it from the van to the workshop). At that time, BRM earned the nickname of "British Racing Misery". BRM,

designed for Indianapolis with a 4.2-litre version of the H16 (2.9375 x 2.36 in, 74.61 x 59.94 mm) but this was never raceworthy; the cars were raced with Ford V8s instead.

The H16 engine was redesigned with a narrow-angle four-valve head and magnesium main castings to reduce weight and increase power, but was never raced (it was intended for the 1967 BRM P115) as BRM decided to use the V12 unit which was being sold to other F1 and sports car teams with encouraging results. ^{[4] [5]}

BRM V12

The H16 was replaced by a V12 (2.9375 x 2.25 in, 74.61 x 57.15 mm) designed by Geoff Johnson. It had been intended for sports car use, but was first used in F1 by the

"wing car" was designed, this was never constructed and the team's performances were lacklustre. Surtees left after a single season (1969), along with Tony Rudd who went to Lotus (initially on the road-car side), and Geoff Johnson who departed for Austin Morris.

The team regrouped with Tony Southgate as designer and Rodríguez brought back into the fold to partner Oliver, and gained its first V12 victory when Rodríguez won the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix in a P153, with further victories for Jo Siffert and Peter Gethin in 1971 in the P160. The team had reached one of its intermittent peaks of success. Both Siffert and Rodríguez were killed before the 1972 season and the team had to regroup completely again. Their last World Championship victory came when Jean-Pierre Beltoise drove a stunning race to win the rain-affected 1972 Monaco Grand Prix with the P160. He also won the non-championship 1972 World Championship Victory Race later in the year. The 1972 campaign was generally chaotic: having acquired major sponsorship (of Marlboro cigarettes, being the first team in the category to be sponsored by the brand), Louis Stanley originally planned to field up to six cars (three for established drivers, three for paying journeymen and young drivers) of varying designs including P153s, P160s and P180s and actually ran up to five for a mix of paying and paid drivers until it became obvious that it was completely overstretched and the team's sponsors insisted that the team should cut back to a more reasonable level and only three cars were run in 1973 for Beltoise, Lauda, and Regazzoni. At the end of the year, Marlboro would transfer its sponsorship to McLaren from 1974 (staying with the team until 1996).

Decline and fall

The last notable performance was Beltoise's second-place finish in the 1974 South African Grand Prix with the Mike Pilbeam-designed P201, a car with a pyramidal monocoque, very different from the curvy "Coke-bottle" Southgate cars. The Owen Organisation ended its support of the team and it was run on a lower-key basis by Louis Stanley and some of the Bourne personnel as Stanley-BRM until 1977. Old P201s were initially used, with the team hoping for a revival with the bulky and vaguely Ferrari-like P207 - which failed entirely.

Cereal millionaire and amateur racer

series.

Side projects

The team became involved with

Caterham Seven

.

BRM were contracted by Chrysler (UK) Competition Department to develop a sixteen-valve cylinder head for the Hillman Avenger engine. It proved unreliable, underpowered, and unable to compete with the Ford rally team's proven Cosworth BDB-powered RS1600 Escorts.

BRM engine sales

The Owen Organisation expected BRM to turn a profit through sales of racing engines; the four-cylinder appeared briefly in a Cooper-BRM special for Stirling Moss but found no other customers. The V8 powered many 1.5-litre cars, including various private Lotuses and Brabhams as well as the BRP works team. Enlarged Tasman Series V8s of between 1.9 and 2.1 L were popular in 1966 as a stopgap before full three-litre engines were widely available. These units were also sold to Matra to power its early sports-prototypes.

A one-litre Formula Two engine was also made available, based on half of the F1 V8. This was not successful, in a formula dominated by Cosworth-Ford and eventually Honda engines.

Team Lotus used the ill-fated H16 engine, scoring its only win.

V12s were sold to other constructors of which the most notable were

entered into a contract with BRM to collaborate in the design of their own V12 engine, but when this became public knowledge the French constructor was forced to drop the involvement with BRM and restart development with a French partner, as its government funding was threatened, but there were still close resemblances between the finished Matra engine and the BRM.

Sponsorship and colours

The first BRMs were a pale duck-egg green (any shade of green represented

.

At one point in the 1960s Alfred Owen's brother Ernest wanted the team to paint their cars orange with black trim, orange being the Owen Organisation's corporate colour, used for a band around the nose of the cars and for the mechanics' overalls; Rudd (who didn't like the idea of orange BRMs) pointed out that orange was the

, when such things were still honoured; through most of the 1960s the cars ran with Owen orange bands round the nose.

The team acquired significant

and ran in pale blue and white. The Jordan-BRM P230 was black and gold.

Later use of BRM name

BRM raced again as part of a project by

BRM P301

, using the BRM name only because it was technically a BRM built chassis but had no other connection to British Racing Motors. Heavily modified into an open cockpit sportscar, the car was equally unsuccessful.

A special edition

Rover 200

was produced to commemorate the Rover-BRM gas-turbine car; this was finished in Brooklands Green (however not the very dark metallic gunmetal BRM shade) with an orange lower, front grill and silver details.

In October 2008, a press release announced that Bee Automobiles Ltd 'BRM Bee Four ERV' would compete in the British Speed Hill Climb championships:

"The 'BRM Bee Four ERV', code named the 'Watt 4', is an all-electric AWD (all-wheel-drive) vehicle capable of producing 700 hp or 520 kW. The ERV uses motor technology developed at Oxford University. The car is theoretically capable of reaching speeds of up to 250 mph. Participants in the project include Rubery Owen, Oxford University, Oxford Brookes and MIRA Ltd - Motor Industry Research Association. Paul Owen, Grandson of Sir Alfred and Managing Director of Rubery Owen's Environmental Technology Subsidiary Rozone Limited, commented: "Rubery Owen is very pleased to see the BRM name once again being used to drive forward an innovative development to take motorsport to new levels'"

As of 2011, the car had yet to leave the drawing board.[7]^[8][9][10]

In 2012, Bobbie Neate, granddaughter of Alfred Ernest Owen (who created Rubery Owen) and daughter of Jean Stanley (née Owen) wrote of her memories of BRM racing in the 1950s and 60s in her book Conspiracy of Secrets.

Formula One World Championship results

Grand Prix winners

The BRM team won seventeen Formula One Grands Prix as follows:

Date	Race	Venue	Driver	Chassis	Engine
31 May 1959	Dutch Grand Prix	Zandvoort	Jo Bonnier	P25	2.5L I4
20 May 1962	Dutch Grand Prix	Zandvoort	Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
5 August 1962	German Grand Prix	Nürburgring	Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
16 September 1962	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
29 December 1962	South African Grand Prix	Prince George	Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
26 May 1963	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
6 October 1963	United States Grand Prix	Watkins Glen	Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
10 May 1964	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Graham Hill	P261	1.5L V8
4 October 1964	United States Grand Prix	Watkins Glen	Graham Hill	P261	1.5L V8
30 May 1965	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Graham Hill	P261	1.5L V8
12 September 1965	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	Jackie Stewart	P261	1.5L V8
3 October 1965	United States Grand Prix	Watkins Glen	Graham Hill	P261	1.5L V8
22 May 1966	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Jackie Stewart	P261	1.9L V8
7 June 1970	Belgian Grand Prix	Spa	Pedro Rodríguez	P153	3.0L V12
15 August 1971	Austrian Grand Prix	Österreichring	Jo Siffert	P160	3.0L V12
5 September 1971	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	Peter Gethin	P160	3.0L V12
14 May 1972	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Jean-Pierre Beltoise	P160B	3.0L V12

Exhibition

There is a small exhibition about Raymond Mays, including his interest in BRM, together with the trophies won by BRM while it was owned by the Owen Organisation, at

's Heritage Centre.

Computer simulation

A driveable, detailed virtual recreation of the BRM H16-powered P83/P115 and the BRM P261 was made available in the PC simulation Grand Prix Legends^[11] that is based on the 1967 Formula One season. An unlicensed recreation of the 1968 BRM P126 can be found in rFactor 2.^[12]

Reawakening

In celebration of BRM's 70th anniversary, John Owen, the 81-year-old son of BRM's original owner, the renowned industrialist, Sir Alfred Owen, has commissioned the build of three authentic 'new' 1950s V16 race cars. BRM's technical partners, Hall and Hall, used the original 'engine number two' a V16 power unit dating back to the 1950s, to help engineers overcome the technical challenges presented by one of the most complex Formula 1 engines of its day – each with more than 36,000 precision-engineered parts.

The re-built engine itself was cautiously tested at Hall and Hall's dynamometer at RAF Folkingham, Lincolnshire, where the original BRM Formula 1 engineering team worked during the 1950s. This particular engine has not been run since one of the original BRM team drivers, José Froilán González, then 77 years old, accidentally over-revved it during the at BRM's 50th anniversary celebration at Silverstone in 1999.  It was comprehensively 'lunched', according to Hall and Hall technicians and has remained in storage ever since.

The three 'new' P15 V16 BRMs have been made possible by the discovery of three unused chassis numbers which were originally allocated to the racing programme, but never built due to a change in the Formula 1 technical regulations at the time.

The first car commissioned by John Owen is expected to be delivered and presented in public in 2021.

References

Further reading

• BRM, Raymond Mays and Peter Roberts
• BRM: The Saga of British Racing Motors, Doug Nye with Tony Rudd, MRP - Volumes 1, 2 and 3 have appeared, covering the front-engined cars, spaceframe rear-engined cars and monocoque V8 cars respectively; Volume 4 will cover the H16, V12s and Can-Ams.
• It Was Fun, Tony Rudd, MRP.
• BRM V16, How Britain's auto makers built a Grand Prix car to beat the world, By Karl Ludvigsen, Published by Veloce
• The V12 Engine, Karl Ludvigsen, Haynes 2005.
• Conspiracy of Secrets, Bobbie Neate, Blake 2012

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to British Racing Motors.

• The British Racing Motors (official) website (2021).
• The British Racing Motors (unofficial) information centre.
• The story
• BRM personnel.
• The Owen Organisation trophies.
• Warwick University Archive - Owen Organisation documents.

Sporting positions
Preceded by Ferrari	Formula One Constructors' Champion 1962	Succeeded by Lotus