Graham Hill testing a BRM P57 Coventry Climax at Snetterton in 1961…
The Getty Images caption lists the date of the photograph as 1 January 1961 which seems a bit unlikely as Hill was with the rest of the BRM team aboard a de Havilland Comet enroute to New Zealand to contest the NZ GP at Ardmore before the P48’s raced by Hill and Dan Gurney were then shipped to Australia for races at Warwick Farm and Ballarat Airfield.
But the jist of the photograph seems to be an early test of the new ‘61 car attended by the BBC who have Graham ‘all wired up’.
1961 was an ‘interim’ season for all of the British F1 teams as none of them had their (BRM and Coventry Climax) V8’s ready for the new 1.5 GP formula which commenced that January.
As a consequence, the Coventry Climax four cylinder 1.5 litre FPF F2 engine- introduced in 1957, was pressed into service by Cooper, Lotus and BRM as an interim solution pending arrival of the Climax and BRM new bent-eights.
It was one of few occasions when the Bourne marque used engines manufactured by folks other than themselves- other exceptions which spring to mind are the Rover gas turbine engine which went into the early sixties Le Mans prototype contender and the Chev V8’s fitted to the dawn of the seventies Can-Am cars.
The shot above is Graham in the Monza pitlane in September with the exhaust side of his FPF peeking at us from beneath its engine cover.
Car #26 behind is the nose of Tony Brooks’ machine, he was fifth in the other BRM in the tragic race which cost Ferrari’s ‘Taffy’ Von Trips and fourteen spectators their lives after a collision involving Von Trips and Jim Clark, Lotus 21 Climax, in the early laps. Hill G retired with engine failure whilst Hill P won the race and the drivers championship in a Ferrari 156.
Graham is above with BBC technicians at left and consulting with Chief Engineer Tony Rudd at right, the clothing rather suggests it’s early in the year- a very long one given the pace of the squadron of Ferrari 156’s. Best results for the P57 were Tony Brooks’ fifth and third places at Monza and Watkins Glen and Graham Hill’s sixth in France and fifth in the US.
First lap, Monaco 1961. Ginther, Ferrari 156 leads from Moss and Clark in Lotus 18 and 21 Climax. Then its Tony Brooks #16 BRM P48/57 with Phil Hill’s #38 Ferrari 156 inside Brooks and almost unsighted is Graham Hill’s BRM P57. The silver nose is Gurney’s Porsche 718 and the other splotch of red Von Trips 156. Moss won from Ginther, Hill and Trips. What a picture!
In non-championship events, even with the Ferraris absent, it was still tough, Hill’s second in the Glover Trophy at Goodwood and third in the Aintree 200 were promising whilst Brook’s best was third in the Brands Hatch Silver City Trophy event later in the season.
(B Cahier)
Mind you BRM were about to enter their purple patch.
Rudd’s ‘Stackpipe’ 1962 BRM P578’s powered by the P56 V8 made the team a force, together with the P261 monocoques which followed for the balance of the 1.5 litre formula- dual World Titles for BRM and Hill followed in 1962 of course.
The shot above is of Graham in the Zandvoort dunes in May 1962, he was first on that day from Trevor Taylor’s Lotus 24 Climax and Phil Hill’s Ferrari 156.
Hill’s P261 at Monza in 1964 has this utterly luvverly, later P60 version of the P56/60 family of engines, the capacity of which stretched from 1.5 to 2.1 litres, at that latter size the P261’s were still race winners in the Tasman Series as late as 1967 against cars with engines of 2.5 litres.
Hill below at Monza in 1964- look at the number of punters in that pitlane! Chaos.
His P261 was fitted with the P60 V8 shown above. Whilst Graham qualified well in third slot his race was over before it started with clutch failure on the line- John Surtees won in a Ferrari 158 enroute to his driver’s title.
Car 20 is Richie Ginther’s P261 which was fourth, and car 36 in front is ‘Geki’ Russo’s Brabham BT11 BRM which failed to qualify.
Credits…
Getty Images, Bernard Cahier, ‘BRM 2’ Doug Nye
Tailpiece: Hill, BRM P57, Snetterton 1961…
Pretty little car, the spaceframe chassis was made of 1 1/2 and 1 1/4 inch outside diameter Accles and Pollock 4CM steel tube- three P57 Climax chassis were built.
Doug Nye notes that whilst the three P57 Climaxes built in 1961 looked proportionately neat and handsome they were built around the P48’s bag fuel tanks which left them still too big- the 1.5 litre engines would consume far less fuel than their 2.5 litre predecessors- 24 gallons compared with 35 gallons, so the mandated use (by Peter Berthon) of the two main moulded FPT tanks ‘restricted potential for serious slimming down’ Nye wrote. The similarly engined Lotus 21 by way of comparison was far lighter being built to the minimum weight limit of 450 kg whereas the BRM was 70 kg above that.
The best of the seven Climax 1.5 FPF’s BRM used in 1961, a Mark 2 specification engine, ‘1224’ gave about 153 bhp @ 7000 rpm. The P57’s gearbox was the P27 transaxle left over from the 2.5 litre P48 program but with an additional fifth gear fitted into the case. Whilst strong, no doubt the ‘boxes were heavy.
Finito…
primotipo... 