Editing Brabham (section)

==Technical innovation==
[[File:2001 Goodwood Festival of Speed Brabham BT46B Fan car.jpg|left|thumb|alt=A mid-engined single-seater racing car with large aerodynamic wings and a big fan on the back|The 1978 [[Brabham BT46|BT46B "Fan car"]] won its only race before being banned. It was nicknamed the "Fan Car" due to the large fan at the rear of the car.]]
Brabham was considered a technically conservative team in the 1960s, chiefly because it persevered with traditional [[spaceframe]] cars long after Lotus introduced lighter, stiffer [[monocoque]] chassis to Formula One in 1962. Chief designer Tauranac reasoned that monocoques of the time were not usefully stiffer than well designed spaceframe chassis, and were harder to repair and less suitable for MRD's customers.<ref>Lawrence (1999) pp. 44–45</ref> His "old fashioned" cars won the Brabham team the 1966 and 1967 championships, and were competitive in Formula One until rule changes forced a move to monocoques in 1970.<ref>Nye (1986) p. 60. Brabham's BT26As and Matra's experimental four wheel drive MS84 of 1969 were the last cars with spaceframe chassis cars in F1. For 1970 the FIA mandated the use of "bag tanks" for fuel, which were to be carried inside box structures. This effectively forced the team to design a monocoque structure. From 1968 Brabham's IndyCars were monocoques for the same reason.</ref>

Despite the perceived conservatism, in 1963 Brabham was the first Formula One team to use a [[wind tunnel]] to hone its designs to reduce [[drag (physics)|drag]] and stop the cars lifting off the ground at speed.<ref>Henry (1985) p. 39. The initial tests were carried out at the [[Motor Industry Research Association]] wind tunnel under the auspices of Malcolm Sayer, who had been responsible for the aerodynamics of the [[Jaguar D-type]] Le Mans-winning car.</ref> The practice became the norm in only the early 1980s, and is possibly the most important factor in the design of modern cars. Towards the end of the 1960s, teams began to exploit aerodynamic [[downforce]] to push the cars' tyres down harder on the track and enable them to maintain faster speeds through high-speed corners. At the [[1968 Belgian Grand Prix]], Brabham was the first, alongside Ferrari, to introduce full width rear wings to this effect.<ref>Lawrence (1999) p. 100</ref>

The team's most fertile period of technical innovation came in the 1970s and 1980s when [[Gordon Murray]] became technical director. During 1976, the team introduced carbon-carbon [[Disc brake|brakes]] to Formula One, which promised reduced [[unsprung weight]] and better stopping performance due to carbon's greater [[coefficient of friction]]. The initial versions used [[reinforced carbon-carbon|carbon-carbon composite]] [[brake pads]] and a [[steel]] disc faced with carbon "pucks." The technology was not reliable at first; in 1976, Carlos Pace crashed at {{convert|180|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on}} at the [[Österreichring]] circuit after heat build-up in the brakes boiled the [[brake fluid]], leaving him with no way of stopping the car.<ref>Henry (1985) p. 163</ref> By 1979, Brabham had developed an effective carbon-carbon braking system, combining structural carbon discs with carbon brake pads.<ref name="Carbon Fibre">Howard (June 2006) p. 52. Interview with Gordon Murray and [[John Barnard]] on the early uses of Carbon Fibre in Formula One for brakes and chassis structure.</ref>

Although Brabham experimented with airdams and underbody skirts in the mid-1970s, the team, like the rest of the field, did not immediately understand Lotus's development of a [[ground effect in cars|ground effect]] car in 1977. The [[Brabham BT46|Brabham BT46B]] "Fan car" of 1978, generated enormous downforce with a fan, which sucked air from beneath the car, although its claimed use was for engine cooling. The car raced only once in the Formula One World Championship—[[Niki Lauda]] winning the [[1978 Swedish Grand Prix]]—before a [[wiktionary:loophole|loophole]] in the regulations was closed by the FIA.<ref>Henry (1985) pp. 186–187. It is often claimed that the car was never banned, but rather withdrawn by Ecclestone. Ecclestone did agree to withdraw it after three races, but the FIA changed the regulations to render "fan cars" in general, not the BT46B in particular, illegal before it could race again.</ref>

Although in 1979 Murray was the first to use lightweight [[Carbon fibre reinforced plastic|carbon fibre composite]] panels to stiffen Brabham's [[aluminium|aluminium alloy]] monocoques, he echoed his predecessor Tauranac in being the last to switch to the new fully composite monocoques. Murray was reluctant to build the entire chassis from composite materials until he understood their behaviour in a crash, an understanding achieved in part through an instrumented [[crash test]] of a BT49 chassis.<ref name="Carbon Fibre"/> The team did not follow McLaren's 1981 [[McLaren MP4/1|MP4/1]] with its own fully composite chassis until the "lowline" BT55 in 1986, the last team to do so. This technology is now used in all top level single seater racing cars.<ref name="AZBrabham">Hodges (1998) p. 43</ref>

For the 1981 season the FIA introduced a {{convert|6|cm|abbr=on|adj=on}} minimum [[ride height]] for the cars, intended to slow them in corners by limiting the downforce created by aerodynamic ground effect. Gordon Murray devised a [[hydropneumatic suspension]] system for the BT49C, which allowed the car to settle to a much lower ride height at speed. Brabham was accused of cheating by other teams, although Murray believes that the system met the letter of the regulations. No action was taken against the team and others soon produced systems with similar effects.<ref>Henry (1985) pp. 223–225</ref>

At the [[1982 British Grand Prix]], Brabham reintroduced the idea of re-fuelling and changing the car's tyres during the race, unseen since the [[1957 Formula One season]], to allow its drivers to sprint away at the start of races on a light fuel load and soft tyres. After studying techniques used at the [[Indianapolis 500]] and in [[NASCAR]] racing in the United States, the team was able to refuel and re-tyre the car in 14 seconds in tests ahead of the race. In 1982 Murray felt the tactic did little more than "get our sponsors noticed at races we had no chance of winning," but in 1983 the team made good use of the tactic.<ref>Hamilton (ed.) (1983) pp. 63–72 ''Pitstops: A split-second spectacle'' feature by [[Denis Jenkinson]].</ref> Refuelling was banned for 1984, although it reappeared between [[1994 Formula One season|1994]] and [[2009 Formula One season|2009]], but tyre changes have remained part of Formula One.<ref>{{cite news|last=Hamilton|first=Maurice|title=Ayrton Senna would applaud formula one's 2010 rebirth|url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2009/may/03/formula-one-2010-refuelling-ayrton-senna|work=The Guardian|publisher=Guardian News and Media Ltd|access-date=1 May 2011|location=London|date=3 May 2009}}</ref>