GT: Brabham Is Back! Brands Hatch Debut For BT62

On 9 November 2019, the name of ‘Brabham’ returned to a circuit where significant moments of its illustrious history had been made in decades gone by.

The Brabham name first came to prominence in the 1950s when Jack Brabham began entering Grands Prix in a Cooper T23. The Australian driver first competed at Brands Hatch in 1959 in the Kentish 100, winning both 42-lap races in a works Cooper-Climax.

Two moments stand out for the Brabham name at the iconic Kentish circuit in the 1960s. The first was Jack Brabham’s victory in the 1966 British Grand Prix, driving the #5 Brabham BT19, powered by a Brabham-Repco engine, on his way to his final Formula One World Championship title.

The second was more frustrating. In 1970, in his final year as a driver in Formula One competition, Brabham was again leading at Brands Hatch when he ran out of fuel on the final lap, allowing Jochen Rindt to pass the #17 car at Clearways to take the victory.

Jack Brabham remains the only Formula One driver to win the world championship driving a car built by his own company, a fact not lost on the next Brabham generation.

Fast-forward 49 years and a Brabham is once again at the wheel of Brabham at Brands Hatch. This time it is Jack’s son, David, himself an highly accomplished racing driver and founder of Brabham Automotive, a company which David Brabham intends to see competing at the highest levels of sportscar racing in the coming years.

After a not inconsiderable legal battle to win back the rights to use the Brabham name, David founded Brabham Automotive in 2018 with the intention of building a track-focused GT car, designed for drivers ‘who want to challenge themselves and push themselves to experience driving in its purest form’.

Enter the Brabham BT62 – an incredibly light, mid-engined hypercar, powered by a Brabham 5.4 litre V8 engine, producing 700 bhp and 492 ft/lbs of torque. The BT62 was first announced to the public in early 2018.

Speaking at Autosport in January 2019, David Brabham admitted that the new company had kept its developments under the radar.

“We’ve been working quietly in the background until May 2018 when we launched which took everyone by surprise – you don’t keep these stories quiet but we managed it! The vision started about three years ago (2016) in terms of the project.

“Brabham’s DNA is in racing – we’ve had such incredible success. We’ve won championships as a brand so where is the next step for us? We want to take the Brabham BT62 to the road and we want to go racing. There’s a lot of work ahead and a big challenge in front us of but it’s an exciting journey at the same time.” – David Brabham.

After considerable testing, the Brabham BT62 made its racing debut at Brands Hatch on November 9–10. Driven by David Brabham, himself a Le Mans winner in 2009, with teammate Will Powell, the car was entered for the final weekend of the Dunlop Endurance Championship run by Britcar which encompassed two ‘Into The Night’ races on the Indy circuit.

Looking resplendent in its blue and yellow Goodyear livery, the #5 (the same number that Sir Jack raced under in 1966) BT62 acquitted itself very well. Brabham put the car on pole for Race One which it duly won by a margin of nearly 20 seconds. Race Two, from which Will Powell started from pole, saw the car stricken with an alternator problem and it was retired after the first hour.

However, despite being hugely restricted, the Brabham BT62 proved itself to be potent track weapon, taking, as it did, a pole, a race win and fastest lap.

David Brabham saw the weekend as very much the first step in taking the Brabham brand back onto the world motorsport stage.

“We’re going to have a car in the Dunlop Endurance Championship next year and the driver development package is all part of the package when people buy a car. The customer side of it is really important for us. We want to expand and grow more customers who want to go racing.”

In January 2019, Brabham had laid out the road map for the BT62 to compete at the very highest levels of GT racing – the FIA World Endurance Championship.

“We set out timelines which were definitely ambitious. 2021 or 2022 I have to say is where we’re aiming to get. It’s a big programme.”

Changes by the ACO to the premier class of WEC racing, namely the ‘Hypercar’ class, has given Brabham Automotive options that did not exist when the car was originally designed.

“We’re not 100% sure whether or not we should be going for the Hypercar class or GTE. Originally we said GTE, but the rules have kind of opened up with the opportunity but that’s a big project. We’ve only just started as an automotive group so we need to build the business. We’ve got lots of plans and we’re working towards them. This weekend is the start of that journey in terms of a racing programme.” – David Brabham

Wherever that journey takes them, watching a Brabham drive a Brabham, liveried in blue with a #5 on the side, brought a lump to this writer’s throat that will not be forgotten in a hurry.