Doug Nye: When racers were honed at Goodwood

Even before the Motor Circuit was closed to racing, teams like Aston Martin, Vanwall, Cooper, Lotus and even BRM – who had to drag all the long way down from Bourne in Lincolnshire to conduct their test programmes – were frequently to be seen running on the course on weekdays.

On November 23^rd, 1959 BRM conducted a series of tests at Goodwood to compare their new prototype rear-engined car – the BRM P48 – with one of its existing Type 25 front-engined cars. The Type 25 is often described – erroneously – as the ‘P25’; every BRM design being accorded a Project number which then went into the outfit’s central register and became keyed to other items relating to that Project. The difficulty with the Type 25 cars is that they were, in fact, a combination of a chassis built to the Project 27 design, and an engine built to the Project 25 – the serial ‘25’ itself, in fact, indicating nothing more than 2.5-litre for what – back in 1954-54 when design of the original Type 25 commenced had been the newly-introduced 2½-litre Formula 1 category. So the cars were really P27s powered by P25 engines – and yet “P25” became their popular title – but only post-period – once the real rivet counters, the chassis number and type number nerds (such as myself) really began re-ploughing history in the later 1960s. 

But one of the features of BRM’s November 23^rd, 1959 test at Goodwood which I always found charming was that they used the occasion to get the impressions of none other than Jack Brabham – the works Cooper number one driver – by giving him an outing in their new rear-engined prototype car… 

This was pretty much like Mercedes-Benz-AMG this winter asking Sebastian Vettel to try Lewis Hamilton’s new mount for next year. “Give it a run Seb and tell us what you think of it, please?”.

Back in 1959, Raymond Mays of BRM had simply asked ‘Black Jack’ to try the new prototype because he had such a wealth of knowledge and experience of how a race-winning rear-engined Formula 1 car – i.e. the Cooper-Climax of the time – should feel when well set-up. There’s a kind of naïve charm to RM expecting Jack to tell him the truth. He needn’t have worried, and neither did Jack because the truth wasn’t very promising.

In fact, Jack reported, “It understeers like hell, but they all do at first!”. Ron Flockhart drove both the works Type 25 front-engined car – chassis ‘2511’ – and the P48 prototype, and he promptly spun off in the rear-engined machine between St Mary’s and Lavant. The car was recovered, Jack Brabham ran it for seven laps, and its suspension was being readjusted he even tried the Type 25…

He then reported that he found the front-engined car “…big and clumsy. Best to avoid driving it as it confused his impressions of rear-engined car…”. Perhaps this was a telling epitaph for the dying front-engined dinosaur of a BRM Type 25? It was not run again that day.

In mid-November BRM team owner and patron Alfred Owen confirmed in writing “I want all the cars altered and turned over to rear-engined by the end of January which should give us the month of February free to do any testing that might be necessary…”.

Testing of the rear-engined BRM P48 ground on at Goodwood through November and December 1959. On November 25 Ron Flockhart and Graham Hill completed 26 and 35 laps respectively. Ron managed a lap in 1 minute 26.6 seconds, Graham a 1:28.2 and a spin at Lavant. Ron found the car “….much better on 6.50 rear tyres than on 7.00s…” while Graham offered simply “It rolls too much, and is very uncomfortable. The rear wheels do appear to be steering the car – it doesn’t give me much confidence…”. As he drove his Jaguar back to his home in North London Graham cannot have been a happy chap. Ron Flockhart – whose driving he did not rate – had lapped 1.6 seconds faster than he had…

Back at base, it was found that the car’s rubber engine mounts had failed due to overload, so the unit was then re-mounted rigidly. On December 4, more P48 tests, but on a damp Motor Circuit. Graham spun at Madgwick, reporting “The car’s worse than last time – it won’t drift at all, the tail comes out too far then the whole car breaks away –if corrected the tail flicks away very fast indeed and can promote a slide – oh, and the engine’s flat below 6,5000”.

After the muddied car had been retrieved, Ron Flockhart drove five laps and agreed: “It’s much worse than last time – the only way to get round a corner is to force it through under power. It’s not as good as it was when Jack Brabham tired it, and it’s not because it’s rolling excessively – it isn’t. The left front brake’s locking too…”.

Softer springs were fitted and Ron did six more laps, assistant chief engineer Tony Rudd reporting: “6 laps, best 1:28.2, track now 50% dry. Very much better, car understeers considerably, but slide conditions are not so vicious – car can now be thrown about a little, is more steady accelerating from corners and pulls easily 7,500rpm on straight. Still cannot take Fordwater flat – is not as good as front engine car here even allowi9ng for water and crosswind. The front seems to crab away from corners, particularly accelerating out. Observing the car, it still understeered badly at St Mary’s, finishing up on the outside of the road badly placed for Lavant, and it did not appear to accept as much throttle as soon out of Lavant as a front-engined car”. 

Graham grudgingly admitted: “It can be drifted after a fashion, understeers but not in a normally accepted sense of word; front seems to patter away from a corner, especially coming out (only place wheel patter observed is in front of pits and out of Madgwick)….”. Nine gallons of fuel were then added to increase weight on the front wheels and after eight more laps Graham reported: “Car drifts all of a piece now – steering feels heavy, could do with less castor – higher-geared box as well as requires too much arm twiddling”.

Slightly positive front wheel camber was then re-set to zero, and­­ Ron then drove a further seven laps, getting down to a lap in 1:27.9. He reported “Another improvement, car is very nearly there, only requires cleaning up in detail. Can be drifted with ease, if off its line can be brought back again, now feels as good as front-engined car everywhere except Fordwater…car is now a pleasure to drive – under suitable conditions 1:23 is possible”. Graham agreed, up to a point, and after eight laps in the car – the best timed at 1:28.4 – he reported: “Much better. Car doesn’t slew off from corners now – but it’s much too tiring to drive, seems to roll too much still, but is now more of a race-worthy proposition altogether – still understeers slightly”. 

Graham had two spins during his 49 laps, while Ron Flockhart accumulated a further 26. Graham admitted: “The car is much better – can now be drifted – is not yet as good as Lotus on handling, but is not far away. It’s very uncomfortable and cramped, although the seat modifications this time were an improvement”.

Flockhart’s summary read: “Car is now better than it was at Monza” – where it had been extensively tested over several days first time out – but it still “…needs some detail attention…handling is generally satisfactory. Car rolls a great deal and cockpit arrangements are such that this is a nuisance; if it could be made as comfortable as in the front-engined car, with a little less roll, and the acceleration from the 6.50 tyres with the road-holding of the 7.00s, car will be very hard to bneat next year”.

The BRM team test records reveal that rear-tyre wear rate around Goodwood from brand-new to tread disappearing around the centreline was 38 laps – 92 miles – with 6.50s or 44 laps (106 miles) with 7.00s. The fronts displayed the same wear after fully 222 miles. Test period fuel consumption overall had been 11.42mpg – and the new rear-engined BRM P48 was beginning to show real promise, at last. 

Such was the pace of development, that Ford Advanced Vehicles began testing what became their Ford GT on the Motor Circuit during the winter of 1963-64, and would continue with the definitive GT40 after the venue’s closure to racing in 1966.

According to the FAV vehicle test report No 5 on testing of their pilot pair of Lola-Ford GTs at Goodwood on October 21st, 1963, drivers were Bruce McLaren and Roy Salvadori. Both the No 2 car and the Prototype fitted with larger disc brakes were tested. Twenty Imperial gallons of fuel was loaded into both cars. Both used Colotti transaxle gearboxes while “No 2 car” had the Indy-spec Ford V8 engine equipped with Hilborn fuel injection rather than the normal Weber carburettors. Unfortunately, this engine proved “…very difficult to start and the engine had the tendency to die out”.

At 11.30am the No 2 car left the pits driven by Bruce McLaren. After four laps – best a 1:36.4 – Bruce came back into the pit lane “Water boiling out, down to half radiator. Water temp – 90ºC. Oil leak in valve cover. Brake temperatures: Front – 400ºC – Rear: 400ºC. Set shocks 4 off full front and rear. Fixed oil leak in valve cover…”.

At 12.05pm – No 2 car rejoined the circuit – driver McLaren – and he did a 1:36.8 but ended up with a mass of work to be done to the No 2 prior to a trip to Monza in Italy where serious testing at very high speeds was to be conducted. Reading the list of jobs to be done, I was amused to find this one: “Arrange for 80lb weight to be bolted on rear of vehicle to simulate additional DOHC engine weight” – they were considering fitting the 4-cam Indy track-racing V8 for the 1964 debut season of endurance racing. From October 29, 19653, the test team was operating its Lola-Fords at Monza. A typical driver comment came from Roy Salvadori: “The car was handling well, although somewhat ‘touchy’ through a corner. A rear-end lifting effect over some bumps was felt. In comparison with the Aston Martin” – the DP214 car with which Roy had beaten the Ferrari 250GTOs during the Italian GP meeting there – “it was much better in some of the corners, and worse in others”. I am sure the Ford engineers found Roy’s input very helpful in that respect. 

But Bruce McLaren – the ever-reliable, informative Bruce, went further: “Car feels good in some corners but feels somewhat unstable on very high-speed corners such as the Curva Grande at 145-150mph. The brake shudder in the front comes directly through the steering, and it also was felt the car had ‘wheel hop’ under braking at the front.

“A decided lifting of the rear end was felt over low-frequency bumps, almost to the extent that the rear shockers may be reaching the rebound stops.

“This rear-end lift then induces an oversteering effect. 

“The wheels were checked and found to be out of balance. This was corrected by the Dunlop people. 

“All four shockers were removed from the vehicle so that they could be checked to make sure the valving ratio was in the proper direction. The exact ratio could not be determined, but it was felt that ratio of bounce to rebound control was near correct.

“It was found that the adjustment control on the right front chocker was not operating, and the car to this point had been operating on the ‘full off’ or lowest damping position. This could account for the wheel hop that was observed earlier.” The report concludes “Due to rain and track conditions, it was impossible to continue testing. It was decided to, therefore, conclude the test at this point…”. 

So it was not only at Goodwood in November that rain could interrupt the engineers’ research, and hamper the technical development of some of motor racing history’s most significant and successful cars. Motor racing is as much technical endeavour as a sporting challenge – and perhaps too often, some of us forget that. But – somewhere in the dusty archives – much of the engineers’ and the mechanics’ and the drivers’ hard work remains faithfully recorded… I hope this remains so about current Formula 1 and ALMS/GT-style racing somewhere on a hard disc, or maybe upon “a cloud”, in 40-50 years’ time – when the internal combustion engine itself might really have become a long-discarded historical threat to life on Earth…

Photography courtesy of The GP Library