Formula 1 1982 - Brabham Invent Refuelling

In 1982, the Brabham team, led by Bernie Ecclestone, worked out that the time gained by starting a race with tanks half-full outweighed the cost of stopping halfway to refill. Thus was born the modern pit-stop. They tried it in four races - in the first three, neither of their cars made it far enough to stop, due to reliability and backmarkers (Piquet's response to being taken off while lapping Salazar is my earliest F1 memory). Although the strategy yielded no points, it proved itself in theory, and by the next season pit stops were the norm.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• F1
• formula
• one
• brabham
• piquet
• pit
• stop
• pitstop
• refuelling

[BunkerFox]

Single best commentator I've seen on a Formula 1 vid

[damiannerd]

this commentator is so sarcastic

[ChrisLynn68]

The 1982 ground effect cars without their front wings were, in my opinion, the most beautiful Formula 1 cars. My favourites are the Brabham BT50, the Lotus 91, and purely for the yellow - white - black livery; the Renault RE30B.

[ChrisLynn68]

@evarn Sliding skirts that actually rubbed on the ground were banned for the 1981 season and had to have a 6cm gap between skirt and ground, until Brabham invented a hydraulic jacking system the lowered the car on track and then raised it to the 6cm rule when in the pits. The 1982 cars had flexible rubbing strips as skirts (not sliding skirts) which were permitted to touch the road surface much like the 1977 Lotus 78 started off with after initially experimenting with 'brushes' as skirts.

[VWatch07]

"But. Or to put it another way, bu~~t. The BT50 blew its engine, and with locked back wheels, frisbee'd towards the crowd. Which the Lord in His wisdom had placed on a hill with a little grass ha-ha at ground level. Just big enough to stop a racing car going sideways out of control."

[VWatch07]

"The French crowd have paid good French francs to see a French car driven by a French driver in the lead in a French circuit, but would've been happier if no other cars had been appearing on the same day. This especially applied to the Brabhams, who had the nerve, on the second lap, to exploit the advantage conferred on them by the master plan of the perfidious Ecclestone."

[beetleman64]

@ramiropina83 You're right, but technology then meant the pitstop took a long time and the strategy wouldn't have worked were it not for Fangio' genius.

Brabham could have made it work (but it didn't). However, reliability let them down rather. Had he not been taken out by Salazar, Piquet would have lasted about a lap before the BMW engine blew. Good idea though.

[evarn]

These were ground effects cars running sliding skirts. the front wings weren't required. all the downforce was generated under the car which had upside down aircraft wing shaped structures. the faster you go, the more downforce i makes. fron wings disturbed the airflow. ferrari ran the front wings i suspect because they ran a flat 12 that got into the rear airflow and didn't make as much downforce. in the end they banned skirts because the cornering speeds were simply to high

[Zoomer30]

Where's the front wing on ANYones car, very few seem to have them.

[ramiropina83]

This satrategy is older... Fangio used it in Nurburgring 1957 when his Maserati was heavier and used more fuel than the Ferraris, so his team planed to run with less fuel at start and then refuel and change tires...

[22j77]

@BunkerFox Me too. So funny!