Indycar Racing News
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BRM H16: how Jim Clark delivered its only Grand Prix win at Watkins Glen
Sixty years on from Jim Clark’s unexpected Watkins Glen victory, the BRM H16 remains a curious chapter in the Bourne team’s history, linking the troubled V16 of 1950 with the engineering ambition behind its only Grand Prix success
Jim Clark’s BRM H16-powered Lotus 43 takes the chequered flag in the 1966 US GP at Watkins Glen
LAT Images
Every few years I become a BRM history obsessive. This has certainly been true in recent weeks while putting the finishing touches to Volume 4 of my ‘BRM Saga’, the book series I began longer ago than the team actually lasted.
But October 2 this year is the 60th anniversary of Jim Clark’s victory in the 1966 United States GP driving the BRM H16-engined Lotus 43. That was a surprise success because earlier in that engine’s career BRM’s latest 16-cylinder had sparked great scepticism.
Despite the Bourne-based team’s record since 1962, when it had won the Formula 1 Constructors’ World Championship and its number one Graham Hill took the Drivers’ title, doubts surrounded the engine it chose for the new 3-litre F1, starting in 1966. Seeking a long-term future for its new unit, Chief Engineer Tony Rudd chose an H16 engine. It was to use effectively the twin-overhead camshaft cylinder, pistons and conrods of the highly successful preceding 1500cc V8 engines, flattened out as two flat-8s, united one above the other, in an integrated block. In cross-section they formed an H lying on its side. Each flat-8 section had its own crankshaft, geared together to power a unified output to a new six-speed gearbox.
The H engine concept came from 1920s-30s aero engine practice. The H form had been adopted then to minimise frontal area. Tony theorised that a return to so many small cylinders would enhance the new engine’s ability to hit high revs. In the face of V8 and V12 competition, higher revs promised higher power… so what could possibly go wrong?
But BRM was vulnerable to the supposed lesson of not-too-distant history. Seventeen years pre-H16, the first BRM V16 had attracted tremendous publicity as a pioneering British attempt to break into serious GP racing, something no British manufacturer had done since Sunbeam in 1923-24.
Its promoter was Raymond Mays, whose pre-war exploits as prime mover of the ERA – English Racing Automobiles – venture had waved the union flag internationally in Formula 2 ’voiturette’ racing for 1500cc-engined cars, 1934-39.
Post-war, Mays launched his extended vision; co-operative British motor industry backing to develop and race a new GP car, to emulate Mercedes, Auto Union, Ferrari and Maserati success – hadn’t we just won a war against those people?
“Higher revs promised higher power… what could possibly go wrong?”
It was all gung-ho, patriotic stuff. And for any and all motor racing-minded enthusiasts it was heady indeed. But while the 1½-litre two-stage centrifugally-supercharged V16 which BRM eventually produced emerged in 1950, its development had taken too long. Short of adequate race development, when it made its debut, in the BRDC International Trophy, Silverstone, 1950, it snapped its final-drive on the startline. The crowd, feeling cheated, jeered and tossed pennies into the abandoned car’s cockpit. Another national humiliation, like the groundnut scheme and Bristol Brabazon, which similarly promised immensity, yet flopped.
BRM survived, courtesy of industrialist Alfred Owen and his family-owned Rubery Owen group. For a new 2½-litre Formula launched in 1954, a simple new 4-cylinder engine was devised. Problems persisted – it took three years before the new BRM Type 25 began winning at non-Championship then (in the 1959 Dutch GP) a World title round.
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But into another new Formula – the 1½-litre class of 1961-65 – the BRM V8 emerged. At last terrific success began. But in 1966 as the replacement BRM H16 remained unraced due to chronic development delays, memories of the original V16 resurfaced. Bygone BRM scepticism regained traction. The H16 first showed real promise in practice for the year’s French GP at Reims, when Graham Hill’s latest P83 works car quite shone. But he still raced a reliable 2-litre ‘Tasman’ V8 car instead… the new H16 remained too tender to race.
Finally, BRM screwed-up all its courage to commit drivers Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart to P83 H16s for the Italian GP at Monza. They raced, and broke. But the team had a customer. Team Lotus ran its reigning World Champion Jim Clark in its Type 43 car, with H16 power. He started that Monza race from third on the grid. He led too, before his BRM gearbox broke – an honourable failure.
Next race was the US GP. There Jimmy qualified his 43-BRM second fastest, headed only by Jack Brabham’s modestly specified but well-handling Repco Brabham V8. Lorenzo Bandini led for Ferrari from lap 20, until a sparkplug electrode dropped and his V12 engine exploded. Surtees’ Cooper-Maserati, baulked by a backmarker, lost 2½ laps and was fighting back from 13th. At half distance both works BRMs finally failed – Hill’s stripping its final-drive and Stewart’s an engine breakage. Jack retired. Clark emerged as race leader, with Jochen Rindt’s Cooper-Maserati almost a minute behind. And Clark rocketed home to score the BRM H16’s unique GP win – BRM power triumphing for the fourth consecutive year at The Glen.
David Owen led Rubery Owen after his father Sir Alfred’s early death and he is justly proud to emphasise that every BRM premier-Formula engine type the team ever made won a race – V16, 4-cylinder in-line, V8, V12… and H16… For me, worth remembering.
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