FORMULA 1’S SEVENTY GREATEST INFLUENCERS
THE 1960S: A REMARKABLE ERA OF ENORMOUS CULTURAL MOVEMENTS IN F1 AS WELL AS THE WIDER WORLD…
THE LAST CHAMPION of the 1950s also became the first of the new decade, his success symbolising a radical change in the design of racing cars. Jack Brabham was a former flight mechanic with the Royal Australian Air Force and a national champion in midget cars before he moved into road racing. On arriving in England in 1955 he went to the Cooper works in Surbiton, bought one of its cars, and spent so much time hanging around the garage and making himself useful that by 1957 he had become a member of its grand prix team. Brabham’s practical experience was vital to the development of the little Cooper-Climaxes as they evolved into full-blown F1 machines capable of winning the world championship, as they did in 1959 and 1960, capturing not just the drivers’ title but the constructors’ championship, the first rear-engined cars to do so.
In the days before kerbs and painted lines, Brabham’s brusque tail-out driving style, developed on dirt tracks, often resulted in stones and earth being thrown into the faces of his pursuers; this rustic approach did not please all his rivals. There were no loose verges at Indianapolis, however, where in 1961 he finished ninth in the 500 in one of John Cooper’s cars, heralding the eclipse of the classic front-engined roadster.
A year later Brabham left Cooper to drive the machines he and the chassis designer Ron Tauranac had started building. Having failed to win a single grand prix in the five years of
