f1teams

FORMULA ONE TEAMS: BRABHAM

Part One: The Past History

The name Brabham has got - as the name McLaren - a double meaning in motor racing. That is because Jack Brabham was in the headlines for a long time as well as a very successful driver as at the same time successful team owner, in spite of the fact, that his company later became a victim of the general crisis in motorsport at the end of the 20th century.

Jack Brabham, born at the 2nd April 1926 in Hurstville, a suburb of Australian Sydney, was an only child with manual skills and interesting in everything that had to do with four wheels. A not satifactioning apprenticeship in an engineering works he gave up for that of a car mechanic at the garage of the Ferguson Brothers. Later he entered a night school to get the qualification of a motor-car engineer and at the end of World War II he joined the Royal Australian Air Force to work as an aircraft mechanic. But it took some time when a friend of his family, Johnny Schonberg, brought him in contact with motor racing with the first visit at a midget car event. And - being himself an enthusiastic technician - he had a midget car of his own under construction with only a few months to be driven by Schonberg in the 1946 season. It was built by Ron Ward and became Brabhams first ever design in motor racing.

With the help of Schonberg Jack Brabham was able to establish a small workshop of his own, and when Schonberg decided to quit active competition, Brabham decided to become a racing motorist without further hasitation. His talent and passion for motorsport awoke. It only took a short while to become a midget car champion. Until the year 1951 he had won some more titles. Without knowing the early fifties became the most important years of his life, because at this time he met the persons later being the foundation stone for his successes following later: Ron Tauranac, the Cooper family and, of course, his wife Betty, he had married in 1951.

Soon he became able to win races in other categories by driving a Cooper Mark IV powered by a self-made engine and some time later he bought a Cooper Bristol with the help of his father to enter road racing. During this time he got to know the shy and introverted designer and sporadic driver Ron Tauranac at the tracks. The native Englishman came to Australia as a child together with his parents. His love and passion for engineering made him complete an equivalent education. When working as an engineer in a foundry he also studied chassis design. The first ever racing car he built together with his brother Austin-Lewis in 1946. During the fifties Tauranac himself competed in a lot of races with a car he had designed in 1948 and continiously developed - and he also drove against Brabham. But the competitor Brabham became a friend, too, and for this reason a close cooperation began. While Tauranac found his orientation in the in Australia well-known Cooper cars becoming himself a chassis specialist, Brabham took the job of the engine-tuning.

From the first letters of their names the Tauranacs formed the name of their racing car company: Ralt (that stands for Ron, Austin-Lewis, Tauranac). But first of all Brabham and Tauranac went seperate ways. By the stories told by his competitors having experienced the European motorsport scene, Brabham became so curious about it it, that he decided to enter it for 1955. He hoped to find some sponsors there, but he did not intend to stay permanently in Europe. He sold his Cooper bristol in Australia and from the money he bought a two-year-old Cooper Alta by the arrangement of Peter Whitehead to compete in the Easter races in England. But the very old Alta engine blew off very soon. He liked Cooper cars very much and for this reason it was no wonder, that he wanted to buy a new one from the Cooper family. But John Cooper offered him to come to the Cooper works at Surbiton to bring a car of his own under construction. Brabham accepted this offer and his first Grand Prix car under the name of Cooper became reality. It had got a longer wheelbase and a 2.3-litre-6-cylinder-engine and became ready for the grid of the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree. There he met star drivers like Fangio, Moss, Kling and others. The Cooper was a single-seater with a stream-lined bodywork originally been designed for a 1.5-litre -Coventry-Climax-engine. Brabhams only Grand Prix in 1955 was out of any success. Started from the back of the grid he was last in the race until his retirement suffering from a bad set up. After his angular style of driving with its immense way of drifting was paid attention to and he had got the lead in a non-championship Formula One race, he returned to Australia at the end of the year, where he was able to win a race.

But for 1956 he came to Europe finally, where he drove for Cooper Car Co. Ltd. in Formula 2. For the new Formula 2 of 1957 Cooper produced a very small mid-engined car with a space-frame made out of steel being revolutionary for the entire world of motorsport. But the 4-cylinder-Climax-engine still was in the need for more power. Brabham competed only in a single worldchampionship event in 1956, the British Grand Prix in a Maserati 250F he had bought for this race and sold after it. In 1957 he drove five championship Grand Prix and further Formula 2 races with Cooper cars for the works team or Rob Walker.

A very important development began before the Grand Prix of Monaco took place: Cooper and Walker wanted to install a 2.0-litre-engine into the Formula 2 chassis with the help of Walker-engineer Alf Francis. This suggestion had been made by Cooper driver Roy Salvadori and their aim was to win this classic event. Coventry-Climax had been ready with their plans for this project, but there was no capacity at Cooper Car Co. Ltd. . For this reason the Walker team became responsible for the realization and they ordered a special chassis at Cooper Car Co. Ltd. and made Coventry-Climax construct the engine. Brabham himself was also involved. But the especially built chassis he crashed into the barrier during the Monaco practice and therefore there had been no other possibility than to transfer the 2-litre-engine into a remaining Formula 2 chassis. After a race full of problems but at the same time exciting, Brabham pushed the car over the finish line to bring it home 6th overall. This spectacular event became the turning point for Cooper and Brabham himself. In spite of the fact that the team was very much involved in Formula 2 and sportscar racing they thought their future would be in Grand Prix racing. With the F2-chassis and the corresponding engines Brabham drove the Grand Prix of France, Britain, Germany (Formula 2) an Pescara (non-championship event) in 1957. In the 1958 season Brabham continued racing for Cooper Car Co. Ltd. with the Formula 2 chassis and the corresponding engines in Formula 2 and Formula 1 (9 worldchampionship races), in sportscar racing he drove for Aston Martin.

Nearly without transition Brabham reached two of his personal successes taking giant steps: In 1959 anfd 1960 he became world champion. Until that time he had not received acceptance on an international level, but with the very small and revolutionary Cooper cars he was able to beat the powerful but big and heavy front-engined cars of Ferrari and B.R.M. their concept had not been completely over. For Cooper Car, who competed in Formula 1 with a 2.5-litre-4-cylinder-Climax-engine, Brabham was the top driver with Bruce McLaren, whom he made join the Surbiton company in 1958, as his team mate. After his first Grand Prix victory in Monaco 1959 and a big shunt later he won the world title. Between both the European seasons he competed in events taking place in New Zealand and Australia. In the year 1960 the competition in Formula One became much stronger, because Lotus, Ferrari and B.R.M. also brought mid-engined cars to the grid. But Brabham won the title with the Formula 2 chassis and the 2.5-litre-Climax-engine before the championship came to its final round. From this point on Brabham was rewarded international respect nevertheless he was mentioned behind drivers like Fangio, Moss and Clark in the history of Grand Prix racing. Even in 1960 he and the Cooper team prepared themselves to enter the grid of Indianapolis 500, where Brabham came home 9th with the especially modified Grand prix car against the ultra-conservative front-engined Indy cars. This result was the first step of a development to bring mid-engined cars into that scene as well. Meanwhile Brabham always competed in Australian events.

Brabham, who always could rely on the support and active cooperation of his wife Betty, was not only an excellent racing driver (and a little bit designer), but also a man with intensive sense for business (including an amazing thrift). In 1959 he founded the first company of his own named Brabham Motors, he bought a garage in Chessington and became a representative of Triumph and Rootes. At the garage he sold products of Australian company Repco (he cooperated with at home) and of Esso. In the meantime he had moved to a house he had bought in Surbiton to be nearer to the Cooper facilities. But also concerning his future in motorsport he started developing plans of his own. For this reason he offered his old chap Ron Tauranac, who meanwhile had created his fourth Ralt design in Australia, a partnership to establish a team of their own in England. But because the Brabham project looked promising for him, Tauranac sold everything to Lynx and moved to England in 1960. (Later, after his and Brabhams retirement from the Brabham team , he refounded Ralt in England in the year 1974.) Brabham and Tauranac were not only friends, they complemented each other in a perfect manner on the technological field - one of the reasons being so successful together. Tauranac puzzled at the drawing-board and Brabham was able to analyze the reactions of the car on the track in a very sensitive way and, in respect of his huge amount of experiences, he had the ability to express suggestions of his own to his fellow technician. All cars were invented, developed and produced in cooperation, but the dominant part of the design work was done by Tauranac. Even in autumn 1960 Tauranac started with the construction of a racing car for the Brabham company.

Brabham himself competed in the 1961 season (being dominated by Ferrari) with an especially developed Formula One chassis for Cooper Car. The 4-cylinder-Climax engines, originally built for the former Formula 2, had not enough power and the new V8s were not able to show a convincing performance. Therefore the 1961 championship was not satisfying for Brabham, but that exactly gave a good portion of extra motivation to the realization of his own plans. And so he was able to found a second company in motorsport named Motor Racing Developments Ltd., soon renamed into Brabham Racing Developments Ltd. at the residence of his Chessington garage. (In 1965 the company was again renamed into M.R.D. to prevent it from being mixed up with many other Brabham companies). The 1961 founded firm Jack Brabham Conversions Ltd. offered high performance parts and services for road cars. Later this company switched from Chessington to Woking/Surrey for larger facilities. At the end of the sixties the Brabham group was the greatest racing car manufacturer all over the world and they were involved in F1, F2, F3 and sportscar racing; later there was a concentration on Formula 1 and 2.

The task of the third, in 1961 founded Brabham company, was the organisation of the race entrances of their own cars. Shareholders of Brabham Racing Organisation Ltd. were Betty and Jack Brabham and the lawyer Phil Kerr from New Zealand, whom Brabham had got to know by his Cooper team mate Bruce McLaren. He became a director of B.R.O. and was also involved in all other Brabham companies. There was a contract between M.R.D. and B.R.O., but Tauranac only held shares of the first one. In autumn 1966 Brabham Racing Organisation Ltd. moved to Guildford/Surrey into larger shops with better equipment made by Repco. The development of the first self-made Brabham car began in autumn 1961. It was a Formula Junior chassis building up the base for all following designs with its spaceframe made of steel pipes. Officially the car was named MRD, but the internal model designation was Brabham BT1 . B stood for Brabham himself and T for Tauranac. This car was powered by a Holbay-Ford-1.1-litre-engine.

At the end of 1961 Brabham thought time had come to concentrate himself completely onto his own enterprises and therefore he left Cooper. Because there was not enough room anymore the workshop switched from Chessington to Byfleet. There the first officially Brabham named car was created, once again a Formula Junior. Brabhams and Tauranacs strong relationship to Australian technology company Repco they had got a lot of support of, made them name their design Repco Brabham. The 1962 built BT2 with the Holbay engine even was brought into action by Brabham Racing Organisation Ltd. . Parallel to that the development of the first Formula One Brabham, the BT3, had begun to make Jack Brabham drive a car of his own in the Grand Prix events.

Part Two: Brabhams own Formula One car

Jack Brabhams decision of 1961 only to work for himself and his own enterprises had the consequence of seperating from Cooper in conflict. That was the reason why he bought a car from Lotus and not from Cooper for the time until the car of his own was ready.

Because the rooms in Chessington had become to small the workshop moved to Byfleet. There Tauranac and Brabham constructed the second Formula Junior car now officially named Brabham. The BT2-type made a very good impression with its Holbay engine and 11 cars were built of it being brought to the grid by the Brabham Racing Organisation or sold to customers.

But the team had to concentrate on the BT3, their first Formula One design, working on it since 1961 to compete in their first ever Grand Prix season. But they would not wait for the completion of their own car to miss half of the season, so they decided to buy a Lotus Climax 24 V8 (revised Lotus 21 and last with a spaceframe) from Colin Chapman. With that car Jack Brabham and M.R.D. gave their Grand Prix debut as the team at the season`s first round in Holland and they also brought the Lotus to the grid in Monaco, Belgium, France and England. In spite of Brabham being in regular good positions with the Lotus, he was not really happy with that car, maybe he thought too much of his own construction. In Zandvoort he had been 4th on the grid but in the race he collided with another competitor spinning. In Monaco a similar thing happened when Brabham was fighting for fourth place. In Spa-Francorchamps Brabham received the first worldchampionship point for the team finishing 6th (in statistics it did not count for Brabham but for Lotus!). In Rouen, where the debut of the BT3 originally should take place, Brabham went off the track and had to retire. In Aintree they took out the BT3 for practice but qualification and race Jack Brabham preferred to do with the Lotus for the last time to finish 5th place in the Grand Prix. For the German round of the worldchampionship in August Jack Brabham used the BT3 for the complete weekend. But the debut of the first Brabham Formula One design was not successful, because of engine problems the car was only 24th at the grid and in the race Brabham had to retire with a broken throttle linkage.

Brabhams first design was at a time, when British cars began to dominate Grand Prix racing with their small and flat cars, in spite of Ferrari winning the first championship under the rules of 1.5-litre-formula with their mid-engined car.

Those days the cars were very small but also compact with their engines covered at the top. The roll bars were so flat, that they were nearly out of any function. The design of the BT3, only one model existing, was not modern but very conventional. Colin Chapman had introduced the monocoque with the Lotus 25 that year, but Tauranac and Brabham decided to take the usual spaceframe to be experienced with not to dare into unknown territory at the team`s Grand Prix debut. They also concentrated on the weight balance - especially on decreasing fuel loads - and the driver`s safety. Around the cockpit the spaceframe had a layout like a cage , the front was made stiffer by pipes crossing. In the contrast to many other cars the horizontal pipes were not used transmitting the water to the radiator installed in the front. The surface of the pipes outside the cockpit were used for better cooling and giving the driver fresher air in the cockpit. The disadvantage of higher weight was accepted. As it was typical for this time the driver was surrounded by fuel tanks everywhere. There were two fuel tanks on both sides being connected under the driver`s legs, one tank above the knees and a forth one behind the seat (all together of a volume of 122.74 litres). Oil and water were cooled by a combined radiator in the front it`s air came out at it`s sides. The oil-tank was behind the radiator. The car had conventional suspensions with disc-brakes on all four wheels. The BT3 had a 6-speed-Colotti-Francis-gearbox with the gearshift leaver at the left side! The car was powered by the Coventry-Climax-V8-engine with 170 -174 bhp at 8300 rpm being on the market since 1961 meanwhile to be continously developed. Brabham used a very special exhaust of the Australian Len Lukey for his car in a turquoise livery with golden stripes.

The Brabham team left out the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the 7th round of the worldchampionship, to transform the discoveries of the Grand Prix debut into knowledges for better results. And so Jack Brabham had been able to be 5th and 3rd at the grids of the last championship rounds in the United States and South Africa to finish very good 4th places in both the events. In 1962 the Brabham team competed in 8 of the 9 worldchampionship rounds and in 3 of them with the car of their own.

During his early races in New Zealand, at the old Cooper days, Jack Brabham had got to know the racing driver Denis Hulme. He had been sent to Europe by an award of the motorsport association of New Zealand at the end of 1959 and competed in some races with Cooper cars. When he found no drive in New Zealand at the end of 1961 he worked as a mechanic at Brabham. When a driver was hurt at a Formula Junior testing session Jack Brabham invited Hulme to enter the cockpit. In Formula Junior he won the first ever race for Brabham at Christmas in Brands Hatch and from that time on he drove for Brabham in this formula and in the rest of his time he worked as a mechanic for them.

Part Three: The Brabham team in 1970

With the end of the 1970 Grand Prix season the first chapter in the history of the Brabham team had been closed because at the end of the year Jack Brabham both retired from active competition and from the lead of his team.

On the technical side it became important, that Tauranac and Brabham had built their first monocoque chassis in Formula 1 with the type BT33. The company´s first ever monocoque had been the the BT25 for Indianapolis 500 in the year 1968. The BT33 replaced the BT26 models at once.

Originally Jack Brabham had wanted to sign up again with Austrian Jochen Rindt after Jacky Ickx had gone back to Ferrari, but Rindt stayed with Lotus because of a better offer made by Colin Chapman. For this reason Brabham made up his mind to drive for another year in spite of having thoughts of retirement. The second works-car was given once again to a young driver, German Rolf Stommelen giving his Grand Prix debut being financed by the Stuttgart based magazine auto motor und sport.

Because of having to obey new technical rules for 1970 the construction work of the BT33 started in spring 1969 had been delayes, so that the first chassis of the BT33 had been ready at the end of 1969. The BT33 was based directly on the experiences made with the BT25 but in contrast to that, it was a pure monocoque design (open monocoque) built out of aluminum sheets. The monocoque only had got the hight of the driver`s hips and only behind the seat it became a little higher. A bar over the driver`s knees was the base for the dash board, a strong vertical plate was in front of it also being the base for the front suspension. The spring7damper unit was inside the bodywork and triangle wishbones were used. The changes in the technical rules concerned stronger fuel tanks that had to be made out of rubber, fitted with metal and fully integrated into the monocoque chassis. The main tanks were beside the cockpit and an addtional tank was under the driver`s knees. For long-distance runs like the Belgian Grand Prix on both sides of the car further tanks were installed making the monocoque wider.

Both the ends of the monocoque of the BT33 space frames were installed. In the front they carried the radiator, in the back the power unit. But the Ford Cosworth unit also was a part of the structure of the car. The roll bar covered with chrome was fixed at the cylinderhead. The wishbones of the rear suspension were fixed behind the cockpit, the brake discs were installed inside the wheels. For the additional safety equipment the minimum weight rose from 500 kilograms up to 530. This last common design of Brabham and Tauranac was once again a very simple and functional one because they shared a very conventional philosophy bring them into direct contrast to innovative Colin Chapman.

The silhouette of the car did not take the way the slim, low design of the cars of most the other competitors. The bodywork came frome the company Specialised Moulding and was related to that of the BT28 and BT30 types. At first there had been no engine cover (later there was one actually) and the rear wing consisted of several elements, for the different kinds of tracks different types of wings existed. When the Lotus Ford 72 appeared the BT33 looked very old fashioned being a design two generation backwards.

The livery of Jack Brabham`s car was a mixture of turquoise and blue, but darker than the original turquoise of the 1962 car. The stripe in the middle of the car and the rim of the nose-scone was yellow. Stommelens car, in spite of being a works entry, was white with a chassis coloured in blue.

Between the types BT26 and BT33 the following designs appeared: The BT28 (based on the BT21X) for Formula 3 in the years 1969 and 1970 very successful both on the track anda bestseller to the customers, the BT29 for Formula B, partly used as a not very succesful Formula 2 car, and the BT30 for Formula 2 in the years 1969 and 1970 based on the BT28.

1970 was a year of tragic losses for Formula 1, during the races Piers Courage and Jochen Rindt, who became a posthumus world champion. Shortly after the season had started Bruce McLaren faced fatal injuries at a CanAm testing session.

Many Cosworth customers had no good season in 1970, especially for Brabham, because Team Lotus was still the favourite for Ford. There had been also very much pressure on Cosworth by the V12 units of Matra, Ferrari and B.R.M. . The task of preparing 60 - 80 engines reguarly brought serious reliability problems and therefore a lot of retirements to the Cosworth using teams.

At the first round of the worldchampionship Jack Brabham scored a very fine and never expected victory with his brandnew car. But that should remain Brabham`s last victory both in the season and in his whole career. Brabham had been 3rd on the grid, went together with Stewart in the Tyrrell March into the first corner, but there Rindt caused a multi-care pile up and a collision with Brabham to make him loose several places. But when he noticed, that there was no damage to his car, he attacked again, took the lead soon and scored a clear victory ahead of Hulme in the McLaren. A new qualifying mode gave 10 staters a fixed place on the grid, the rest had to qualify for the race. Stommelen belonged to the last group but qualified 15th, but in the race he retired with a blown engine. The German had got chassis no.1 . The Team Gunston brought the BT 26 to the grid that had been raced and modified by the Williams team in 1969, the brown car with it´s high roll bar was driven in Kyalami by de Klerk.

In Spain Jack Brabham took pole positions and after the start he was 3rd behind Stewart and Hulme. Beltoise with the Matra overtook Brabham, but the Frechman had to retire as well as Hulme. Before Brabham was able to overtake leading Stewart in the Tyrrell March, he had to retire with a broken engine. Stommelen was not qualified reacing only the 17th time, but when Courage in the de Tomaso Ford could not start because of a technical failure, the German came 16th and last to the grid also to retire with engine trouble in the race. Jack Brabham had tested Stommelens car during practice to get some information why the Cologne driver was so slow. But when could not find a mistake with the car, he gave Stommelen some instruction for being more competitive.

The Spanish Grand prix was the first round Lotus had brought the 72 to and in contrast to the Brabham BT33 that car looked like of being of the next but one generation. So the performance of the Brabham chassis was very astonishing.

In Monaco the experienced Jack Brabham threw away a secure victory. Being 4th on the grid he was on the hunt for the leading Stewart in the Tyrrell March, but after some overtaking manoevres and also some retirements, the Australian took a comfortable lead ahead of Rindt putting a great pressure on him during the last laps of the race. In definitely the last lap Brabham made a mistake in the gasometer curve coming on sand and dirt when overtaking some backmarkers. Brabham took off the line, crashed into the straw-balls and came home second with a defect nose-scone when Rindt took the victory. During the practice-free Friday Jack Brabham had given a funny impression when he had run in new disc pads with an umbrella over his cockpit to protect him against the rain. Stommelen did not qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix.

In Belgium Formula One felt very sad because Bruce McLaren had been killed. Jack brabham had been 5th on the grid and in the race he was in the battle for the places 6 to 3 before retiring with a broken clutch. Stommelens situation got better now, he qualified 7th and finished 5th in spite of a misfiring engine.For the long distance of this race both cars had additional fuel tanks beside their cockpits to avoid refuelling pit stops. In practice one of the series 10 Cosworth engine was tested but not used in the race because of a lack of reliability.

The Holland Grand Prix brought disappointment to Jack Brabham and also a tragic end to Piers Courage being killed in the flames of his de Tomaso Ford. For this reason Tauranac planned to design modified fuel tanks according to the US-specifications. Before that Brabham had a serious accident driving Stommelens car a a Zandvoort testing session. The car car was able to be repaired, but it had lost a lot of it`s performance so Stommelen was not able to qualify for the Dutch Grand Prix. Brabham himself was only 12th on the grid because Goodyear tyres were less competitive than those of Firestone or Dunlop. In Holland for the first time the Brabham cars were seen with partly covered engines.

For the French Grand Prix at Clermont Ferrand new Goodyear tyres were brought to the track. Jack Brabham was 5th on the grid and stood beside the Lotus of Jochen Rindt. In the race he was very competitive with a new lap record to his credit and came home 3rd behind Rindt and Amon and ahead of Hulme`s McLaren. Stommelen started 4th and finished 7th.

At the British Grand Prix in Brands Hatch Jack Brabham once again lost a secure win that was earned also by Rindt. Brabham had been 2nd on the grid and after the start he was between Ickx and Rindt. After the retirement of Ickx Brabham overtook Rindt but in the last lap Brabham`s engine stopped. He had run out of fuel! Rindt overtook him shortly before the finish and there were rumours that mechanic Ron Dennis had filled in only 7 cans of fuel instead of 8. Stommelen had an accident during practice but remained unhurt, his car definitely had become a wreck. Because having no car available the German was not able to take part in the British Grand Prix.

For safety reasons the German Grand Prix switched from the Nürburgring to Hockenheim for the first time. M.R.D. had built a new BT33 chassis (no.3) with some modifications for being driven by Stommelen and for the first time the German qualified ahead of his team boss. Cosworth was in a deep crisis and even in practice Jack Brabham suffered under a blown engine. That repeated in the race only after five laps. Stommelen had a good race and come home within the points at 5th place.

The 9th round of the worldchampionship took place in Zeltweg and for the first time on the newly constructed Österreichring. Cosworth`s problems became dramatical and Jack Brabham suffered under 2 broken engines in practice to take the last one out into the race. He was 8th on the grid but when hunting the Ferrari of Giunti a stone hit Brabham`s radiator to be changed in the pits taking 5 minutes. That made Brabham finish only 13th. In contrast to that Stommelen had a lucky race, from 13th on the grid he finished 3rd behind the winning Ferraris of Ickx and Regazzoni. During the practice the German had driven Brabham`s own car in the original works livery.

During the practice to the Italian Grand Prix Jochen Rindt died and the Lotus cars were taken away from the event by the Hethel based team. Brabham qualified 8th and Stommelen only 17th, but the German had an excellent start to bring him to 8th position early in the race to finish very good 5th. Brabham himself was able to follow the top but later he got temperature problems and a misfiring engine that made him leave the track. Brabham had got one of the 4 existing new Cosworth engine that had higher revs up to 10.600 rpm instead of the former 10.000 . For the first time both cars appeared with an airbox having both their air-intakes beside the roll-bar. In Monza the Stommelen car had no engine cover and no front wings but the airbox.

On the bumpy track of Mont Tremblant in Canada the Brabham team had a poor qualifying being only 18th (Stommelen) and 19th (Brabham) on the grid. Brabham gave a slight damage to Stommelen`s car when taking it out in practice. The race was also disappointing, Stommelen retired with a defect steering and Brabham with a broken suspension.

The performance of the team got worse and worse, partly caused by the Goodyear tyres. In the Watlins Glen qualification Brabham reached only 16th place on the grid and Stommelen 19th. In spite of the fact both cars finished they scored only the positions 10 (Brabham) and 12 (Stommelen).

Before the Mexican Grand Prix, the final round of the 1970 worldchampionship, Jack Brabham declared definitely his retirement from active competition after that race. Brabham was 4th on the grid after suffering once again from a blown engine in practice. Jack Brabham was on the hunt of both the Ferraris and the Tyrrell of Stewart when he had an engine failure once again. Stommelen started 17th and also retired of engine troubles.

It was a pity that Brabham`s last season was not so successful as it could be, 3 sure victories had been lost in the last possible moment and partly the Cosworth engines and the Goodyear tyres had been responsible for that. So Brabham became 5th in drivers` championship and the team 4th in the constructors` competition.

After 15 years in the Grand Prix business with 14 wins (competing in 126 events) and 3 worldchampionship titles to his credit Jack brabham retired both from active competition and from leading his team. His shares of the company he sold to his friend Ron Tauranac because he did not wan to be a team principal alone. A lot years later Brabham he changed his opinion on that subject and considered it a mistake to resign from the team. Back home in Australia Brabham bought a house and a giant farm in Bankstone near Sidney. His European business was the the garage in Chessington and the engine shop of John Judd he owned up to 50% of the shares. In 1994 he was also involved in the Grand Prix team of Simtek. In spite of being one of the greatest personalities in motor racing ever, he never reached the reputation and the popularity of people like Fangio, Moss, Clark or later Stewart. The reason for that was his introverted and unspectacular mentality.

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