Editing Brabham (section)

==Origins==
[[File:BrabhamJack1966B.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|alt=Photograph of Jack Brabham in 1966|[[Jack Brabham]] was 40 when he won the F1 drivers' title in a Brabham car]]
The Brabham team was founded by [[Jack Brabham]] and [[Ron Tauranac]], who met in 1951 while both were successfully building and racing cars in their native Australia. Brabham, who had been a highly successful [[Dirt track racing|dirt oval speedway]] [[Midget car racing|Speedcar]] driver with multiple [[Australian Speedcar Championship|Australian national]] and state titles to his credit before moving full-time into road racing in 1953, was the more successful driver. He went to the United Kingdom in 1955 to further his racing career. There he started driving for the [[Cooper Car Company]] works team. By 1958, he had progressed with them to [[Formula One]], the highest category of [[open-wheel racing]] defined by the [[Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile]] (FIA), motorsport's world governing body.{{efn|"FIA" has been used throughout this article to refer to the motor sports governing body. Until 1978 motor sport was governed directly by the Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI) and from 1978 by the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA), both subsidiary bodies of the FIA. In 1992 the FIA subsumed FISA and its governing role.}} In [[1959 Formula One season|1959]] and [[1960 Formula One season|1960]], Brabham won the [[List of Formula One World Drivers' Champions|Formula One World Drivers' Championship]] in Cooper's revolutionary [[mid-engine]]d cars.<ref>Henry (1985) pp. 17–19</ref>

Despite their innovation of placing the engine behind the driver, the Coopers and their chief designer, [[Owen Maddock]], were generally resistant to developing their cars. Brabham pushed for further advances, and played a significant role in developing Cooper's highly successful 1960 T53 "lowline" car, with input from his friend Tauranac.<ref>Lawrence (1999) pp. 18, 22. Brabham had consulted Tauranac by letter on technical matters since arriving in the UK. He used a gear cluster designed by Tauranac for several years and Tauranac also advised on the suspension geometry of the Cooper T53 "lowline" car.</ref> Brabham was confident he could do better than Cooper. In late 1959, he asked Tauranac to come to the UK and work with him. Initially, they produced upgrade kits for [[Sunbeam Rapier]] and [[Triumph Herald]] road cars at his car dealership, Jack Brabham Motors. However, their long-term aim was to design racing cars.<ref>Lawrence (1999) pp. 22–4. Jack had already tried to buy Cooper in association with fellow-driver [[Roy Salvadori]]</ref> Brabham described Tauranac as "absolutely the only bloke I'd have gone into partnership with".<ref>Brabham, Nye (2004) p. 140</ref> Later, Brabham offered a Coventry-Climax FWE-engined version of the Herald, with {{convert|83|hp|kW|0|abbr=on}} and uprated suspension to match the extra power.<ref name=IMSblunsden>{{cite magazine|title=Brabhams "lilla bomb"!: Triumph-Herald-Climax|trans-title=Branham's "little bomb"!|pages=12–13|language=sv|last=Blunsden|first=John|location=Lerum, Sweden|magazine=Illustrerad Motor Sport|number=1–2|date=February–March 1962}}</ref>

[[File:BrabhamJack19650801Südkehre.jpg|thumb|alt=A mid-engined single-seater racing car with no aerodynamic wings|Brabham in a 1965 Grand Prix car]]

To meet that aim, Brabham and Tauranac set up Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD), deliberately avoiding the use of either man's name. The new company would compete with Cooper in the market for customer-built racing cars.<ref>{{Cite web |title=JACK BRABHAM |url=https://www.speedace.info/racing_teams/jack_brabham.htm |access-date=2025-05-17 |website=www.speedace.info}}</ref> As Brabham was still employed by Cooper, Tauranac produced the first '''MRD car''', for the entry level [[Formula Junior]] class, in secrecy. Unveiled in the summer of 1961, the "MRD" was soon renamed. Motoring journalist [[Gérard Crombac|Jabby Crombac]] pointed out that "[the] way a Frenchman pronounces those initials—written phonetically, 'em air day'—sounded perilously like the French word... ''[[Wiktionary:merde|merde]].''"<ref>Scarlett (May 2006) p. 43. Although compare pronunciation with the related verb [[wiktionary:emmerder|emmerder]]. This is the story as recalled by both Ron Tauranac and Brabham mechanic Michael Scarlett. The British journalist Alan Brinton has also been credited with pointing out this unfortunate fact to Brabham. See Drackett (1985) p. 21.</ref> Gavin Youl achieved a second-place finish at Goodwood and another at [[Mallory Park]] in the MRD-Ford.<ref name=IMS162>{{cite magazine|title=Jack Brabham: VM-kandidat på egen hand?|trans-title=Championship candidate on his own?|page=11|language=sv|last=Johansson|first=Lars-Erik|location=Lerum, Sweden|magazine=Illustrerad Motor Sport|number=1–2|date=February–March 1962}}</ref> The cars were subsequently known as Brabhams, with type numbers starting with BT for "Brabham Tauranac".<ref>Drackett (1985) p. 21. The first prototype FJunior car therefore became the BT1 and its production version the BT2.</ref>

By the [[1961 Formula One season]], the [[Team Lotus|Lotus]] and [[Scuderia Ferrari|Ferrari]] teams had developed the mid-engined approach further than Cooper. Brabham had a poor season, scoring only four points, and—having run his own private Coopers in non-championship events during 1961—left the company in 1962 to drive for his own team: the Brabham Racing Organisation, using cars built by Motor Racing Developments.<ref name="Law31">Lawrence (1999) p. 31</ref><ref>Brabham, Nye (2004) pp. 14, 145–9. Brabham's and Tauranac's (Lawrence 1999 p. 32) accounts differ on whether the BRO was formed for the purpose of F1, or was already in existence.</ref> The team was based at [[Chessington]], England<ref>{{cite web|url=http://corktree.tripod.com/Case_History.html |title=Case History |publisher=Corktree.tripod.com |access-date=3 September 2017}}</ref> and held the [[List of Formula One constructors#Team's nationality|British licence]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.racingsportscars.com/covers/_Zeltweg-1970-08-16e.jpg|title=1970 Austrian Grand Prix Entry list}}</ref>