British Racing Motors V16
kW) | |
---|---|
Dimensions | |
Dry weight | approx. 200–230 kg (441–507 lb) |
The British Racing Motors V16 was a
The very complex engine was exceptionally powerful for the time, but it initially proved a disappointment, possessing poor reliability so that cars either did not start or failed to finish races. In the 1952 Formula One season, after BRM withdrew their V16 engined cars before a race in Turin while attempting to enlist Juan Manuel Fangio, leaving only Ferrari as the main contestants with no effective competition, the racing organisers abandoned the Formula One series and ran the remaining year's races as Formula Two.
Development
The engine was designed by a team consisting of
The
In many cases parts were produced in the form of donations to the BRM team by the respective companies, which had the advantage of reducing BRM's spending. However, many parts were produced only when suppliers had spare capacity and so were delayed, and because the parts were donated BRM were unable to expedite delivery. Because of this, the engine itself was late. Some completed components did not arrive at BRM for assembly until May 1949, reducing time available for testing before the start of the first season's racing.
The completed car was first run on the aerodrome at RAF Folkingham in December 1949, driven by Raymond Mays, who was suffering from a high fever at the time. The use of Folkingham was the British Government's sole contribution to the project.
Races
It had been intended to début the car at the 1950 Formula One Grand Prix race at Silverstone, the first race of the new Formula One World Championship, but problems with the engine, such as cylinders cracking, buckling of connecting rods, and piston failures, led to the postponement of the race début. BRM instead had to settle for displaying the car at Silverstone after the BRM mechanics had worked all the previous night to get the car ready. Mays drove the car for several laps. The demonstration was witnessed by Princess Elizabeth, later Elizabeth II, and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
The car was first entered in a race at the August 1950 Daily Express non-Championship race at Silverstone. The one car that the team had been able to prepare was flown from Folkingham into Silverstone on the morning of the race. It had missed the practice sessions but, after three proving laps driven by Frenchman Raymond Sommer, was allowed to start from the back of the grid. When the flag dropped at the start of the race, the BRM, carrying the racing number 8, merely lurched forward and then stopped, engine screaming, with Sommer unable to get any drive. The car was pushed over to the side of the track and withdrawn. One or both inboard universal joints had failed.[10] This was perceived as a particularly unfortunate event for the car and British Racing Motors as the Daily Express newspaper had produced a glossy brochure about the new car, and the failure of the BRM at the race is considered to have somewhat coloured people's perception of the car ever since.
The next outing was a short sprint event at Goodwood in September of that year. Reg Parnell won two races, including the Goodwood Trophy, despite being unable to use all the car's power due to the poor weather and wet circuit. After the fiasco of Silverstone, the two wins demonstrated that the car could actually go and had tremendous speed and acceleration. Parnell said in a news interview after the races; "All we need now is a little longer time to develop it and then we hope to show the Continent what we really can do".[11] In subsequent races Peter Walker drove a second car, and in July 1951 BRM was able to enter two cars for the 1951 British Grand Prix. During the race the two drivers suffered from extreme heat in the cockpit because the exhaust pipes were routed inside the bodywork. This problem had not been so troublesome in earlier, shorter, races. During one of two pit stops, Parnell and Walker had to wrap burn dressings around their legs to provide insulation from the heat, together with limiting the revs to 10,500rpm to reduce the cockpit temperature to a tolerable level. Despite this, and starting from the back of the field, Parnell finished 5th, with Walker 7th.
Later the team went to
In 1952 Stirling Moss came to BRM to work on testing the car, with the possibility of racing it. He drove one of two BRMs in the 1952 Ulster Trophy but had problems with his car during the start. Both cars failed to finish and the race was won by Piero Taruffi driving a Ferrari. Later in 1952, BRM entered three cars in a race at Goodwood; the cars finished first, second and third.
In the same year Alfa Romeo, one of the leading players in the sport, stated that they might not participate in further Grands Prix, leaving only two major teams, Ferrari and a temporarily uncompetitive Maserati. The race organisers of Formula One wondered who could take Alfa Romeo's place.
Ferrari had built new cars for the
Meanwhile, at the missed Turin race, Ferraris had finished in the first six places, prompting the race organisers to abandon BRM as their hope of providing any real competition for Ferrari in Formula One, and instead run the remaining season's races as Formula Two events. Thus, by not competing in the Turin race, BRM contributed to the downfall of the Formula for which the car had been built.
In the middle of 1952 the cars were substantially rebuilt, including better cooling – most notably a greatly enlarged radiator aperture in the nose, better ventilation, and repositioning of the exhaust pipe stubs. The car had been deliberately designed with a low seating position, but Fangio, asked what changes he would like on the car, replied that amongst other things he would like a little higher seat, as he liked to see where he was going. The car was modified to Fangio's request and he drove the car intermittently throughout 1953. He later said that it was the most formidable car he ever drove during his career. At this stage the engines were developing more than 500 hp, touching 600 hp, albeit with a very peaky power curve. This power curve had been forecast by Rolls-Royce who had recommended that inter-stage throttling of the supercharger be incorporated to provide a curve more suited to road use. Berthon considered the addition an unnecessary complication, and this, and the alternative variable-angle stators at the supercharger's inlet - both used initially on the two-stroke Crecy - which had been developed and tested by Rolls-Royce for the engine, were not proceeded with.[12]
After a particularly trying time with reliability problems during a 1952 race at Ulster, Fangio was asked if he would ever drive the BRM again. He replied; "I will. I consider it to be, basically, the best Formula One car ever made. All it needs is improvement in certain details. No car has ever given me such a thrill to drive, or a greater sense of absolute mastery. I will stand by it".[13] Unfortunately for both Fangio and BRM, the following day, tired after an overnight drive from Folkingham across Europe to Monza for a race, he crashed while driving for Maserati, breaking his neck, and retired from racing to recover until early 1953.
After Fangio's accident at Monza, Mays, looking around for a replacement driver, auditioned Mike Hawthorn, who drove the car at Folkingham but later complained: "It was no use – every time I came to a corner and went below the 8,000rpm mark, the power went right off. Then, suddenly, as you reached the 8,000 mark the full power would come in and you had a job to hold the car straight. At 8,000rpm it really did motor, but the steering was nothing to write home about". Hawthorn went on to drive a Ferrari for Tony Vandervell instead. In the meantime, the car was raced by José Froilán González and Ken Wharton, who was one of BRM's own test drivers.[14]
At around this time the
Also in 1953, the BRM had a moment of glory at
At around this time Tony Rudd, who had by then joined BRM after his previous period of secondment from Rolls-Royce, suggested that they build a lightweight, short-wheelbase, version of the car for this sort of race, and this subsequently became the Mark II or Type 30. Two were built; the first used components from the wreck of Wharton's car damaged at Albi. Rudd was thinking of chasing the Class F Record with the car, and asked his former employers what they thought the engine was capable of if tuned for all-out speed for only a few miles. Rudd stated that Rolls-Royce replied; "They said it would pull 800hp with all the goodies and 1,000hp with a sprint fuel". However, the attempt on the record was never made.[14]
Amongst the other drivers, the Type 15 Mark II/Type 30 was also driven by Ron Flockhart. The cars were raced in 1954 and 1955 while BRM worked on a car for the new Formula One specification of 2.5 litres un-supercharged. By this time the V16-powered cars were running quite reliably, but the demise of the Formula around which they had been based prevented the Mark II cars from making a greater impact.
The cars last raced around the end of 1955. One of the later drivers was Peter Collins, who, Owen thought, was the only driver other than Fangio who showed the BRM Type 15/Type 30 to its best advantage.[8][15]
The potential of the engine was illustrated in 1968 when Graham Hill drove the car in a demonstration in South Africa, the car being fitted with the original, larger, Rolls-Royce supercharger inlet. Hill revved the engine to 13,000rpm, at which point Rudd thought the engine would have been producing around 780 bhp.
Fangio's opinion on the BRM Type 15/Type 30 was; "It was the most fantastic car I ever drove – an incredible challenge in every way."[14]
Results
The engine was powerful and the car was fast. Reliability, at least early on, was not adequate: the engine suffered from water leaks into the cylinders, due to the use of a separate
- Number of Grands Prix 4
- Number of starts 2
- Number of finishes 2
- Number of finishes in points 1
After the fiasco of the Ulster Trophy in June 1952, where both BRM V16-powered Type 15's failed to finish, Stirling Moss wrote to Raymond Mays telling him that he did not want to drive the car in the state that it was in, given its lack of reliability.
Conclusion
Although reliability was a problem during the car's brief Formula One career, the car and engine went on to become quite reliable after the initial problems had been worked out. Unfortunately this did not occur until after the Formula the car had been designed for had been abandoned. The cars themselves contributed to the changing of the Formula due to Mays' withdrawal of the cars at Turin in 1952. By the time the reliability problems had been solved the car had nowhere to race in the Formula it was intended for.[16]
A total of four Type 15s were produced,[
Technical data
- Designer: Peter Berthon
- Cylinders: V16
- RPM: 12,000
- Displacement 1487.76 cc (90.8 cu in)
- Power 550 bhp (410.1 kW)
- Dry sump 50 to 70 lbf/in2
- 135 degree V16 .
- Bore 1.95 in (49.53 mm)
- Stroke 1.90 in (48.26 mm)
- Fuel system psi(5.7 bar) maximum boost.
- Fuel Petrol/alcohol fuel
- Ignition Lucas coil, later four Lucas magnetos. One spark plugper cylinder
- Valve gear 2 valves per cylinder @ 80 degrees with twin overhead camshaftsper cylinder bank, via gear train from the centre of the crankshaft. Hairpin valve springs.
- Inlet valves 1.25 in (32 mm)
- Exhaust valves 1.09 in (28 mm)
- Crankshaft Counterbalanced two piece with 8 plain bearings & 2 main roller bearings. (Later 10 plain bearings.)
Power
In Raymond Mays' book,[17] he claimed the following power curve with the 4.0:1 supercharger (5.7 ata):
- 100 bhp (75 kW) at 5,000 rpm
- 175 bhp (130 kW) at 6,000 rpm
- 250 bhp (190 kW) at 7,000 rpm
- 335 bhp (250 kW) at 8,000 rpm
- 412 bhp (307 kW) at 9,000 rpm
- 525 bhp (391 kW) at 10,000 rpm
- 585 bhp (436 kW) at 11,000 rpm
- 600 bhp (450 kW) at 12,000 rpm
He also stated that at Albi 1953, Fangio's V16 had 72 psi boost (4.9 ata) and 585 bhp (436 kW) @ 11,800 rpm, and he reached over 190 mph (306 km/h).
Tony Rudd's book[18] showed a power curve peaking at 612 bhp (456 kW).
References
- ^ "Engine BRM • STATS F1".
- ISBN 9781845840372.
- ^ "The Short and Intriguing History of V-16 and W-16 Engines @ Top Speed". 29 June 2020.
- ^ "BRM P15 V16 Continuation". 4 November 2020. Archived from the original on 9 October 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
- ^ "1954 BRM Type 30 'V16' - Images, Specifications and Information".
- ^ https://www.historicracingnews.com/Article/V16-BRM-on-Show-at-Retromobile/2156
- ^ "The BRM V16 Roars Again - the return of a legendary British racer". 18 November 2020.
- ^ a b Veloce Publishing (20 December 2007). "Karl Ludvigsen on the BRM V16 part 1 www.velocebooks.com". Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 27 November 2016 – via YouTube.
- ^ "BRM Type 15". 18 January 2014.
- ISBN 0-947981-37-3.
- ^ musrum (11 December 2006). "BRM A Brief History". Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 27 November 2016 – via YouTube.
- ISBN 9781845840372. Retrieved 27 November 2016 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 978-1845840372.
- ^ a b c "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-11-29. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ISBN 978-1-84584-037-2
- ^ "How a Formula 1 Internal Combustion Engine Works". f1chronicle.com. 26 August 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
- ^ Mays, Raymond and Roberts, Peter (1962). B.R.M.. Cassell.
- ISBN 1-85260-413-1.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-947981-37-3.
- Ludvigsen, Karl (2008) [2006]. BRM V16. Veloce. ISBN 978-1-84584-037-2.
- BRM V16. Profile Publications. 1967.