Brabham

Motor Racing Developments Ltd., commonly known as Brabham ( BRAB-əm), was a British racing car manufacturer and Formula One racing team. It was founded in 1960 by the Australian driver Jack Brabham and the British-Australian designer Ron Tauranac. The team had a successful thirty-year history, winning four FIA Formula One World Drivers' Championships and two World Constructors' Championships. Under Brabham and Tauranac, Brabham won double world championships in 1966 and 1967, with the 1966 drivers' title going to Jack Brabham and the 1967 title going to Denny Hulme. Jack Brabham is the only Formula One driver to win a Drivers' Championship in a car bearing his own name. Brabham was the first Formula One team to use a wind tunnel to design cars. It became the world's largest manufacturer of open-wheel racing cars sold to customer teams, having built more than 500 cars by 1970. Teams using Brabham cars won championships in Formula Two and Formula Three. The cars also competed in events like the Indianapolis 500 and Formula 5000 racing. The businessman Bernie Ecclestone owned Brabham during most of the 1970s and 1980s, and later became responsible for administering the commercial aspects of Formula One. Under Ecclestone and chief designer Gordon Murray, the team won two more Drivers' Championships in the 1980s with Brazilian Nelson Piquet. During this period, the team withdrew from manufacturing customer cars but introduced innovations such as carbon brakes and hydropneumatic suspension; it also reintroduced in-race refuelling. Its unique 'fan car' won its only race, in 1978, before being withdrawn. Piquet won his first championship in 1981 in the ground effect BT49-Ford. In 1983, he became the first driver to win a title with a turbocharged car, the Brabham BT52, which was powered by BMW's M12 straight-four engine and won four Grands Prix that season....