The History of the Pit Stop | Gone in Two Seconds | Red Bull TV Short, fascinating documentary with David Coulthard. Thought some would like to see. Enjoy!
Only had time for the first ten minutes. Great stuff. This reminds me of making a trip to the old tracks one day, what a spectacular setting. Thanks for sharing that find!
I didn't live through that era as a fan really, but I admire it. I saw that car at the BMW Welt in Munich, and it was very hard to leave it. The family was like 10 mins ahead by the time I finally caught up. I just could not stop looking at it and taking pictures.
Here again, you had a team achieving miracles with a small budget. Gordon Murray was a very inventive engineer and tactician, always coming with new ideas. I know, some of them were rather "borderline", like exotic fuel, under-weight qualif cars, etc... but they were against some strong opposition too. Bernie Ecclestone, whose team it was, was holding the purse strings, and wouldn't spend too much on his racing. I think that was the downfall of Brabham. When Piquet asked for a rise (after 2 WDCs), Bernie turned him down, and the same for Murray. In disgust, they both left., and Brabham lost its best human "assets". Bernie was unwilling to reward success. Probably he had lost interest in being a team owner, and preferred to concentrate on running FOCA.
It's an amazing story that I don't think can ever be duplicated again because of where we are in terms of the sport and technology. The sheer HP from that tiny engine as well...once BMW got it reliable-enough - just amazing. A shrewd deal maker to a fault at the time it seems. His great decisions put them in a position to win. But he couldn't take that little step back to not squeeze his own team in the same way. Maybe he didn't care anymore as you point out...who knows.
